324 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 
From S. F. Baird to George Spangler, Carlisle. 
February 23, 1855. 
My pear GEoRGE:— 
I wish you would send word at what prices such trifles as butter, 
eggs, chickens, ducks and turkeys, are selling about Carlisle. I have 
just gone to housekeeping for the first time here and find the cost of 
the eatables a serious thing. Would it be possible to make arrange- 
ments with somebody in Carlisle to send me every week or two a 
box containing butter and eggs and in cool weather some poultry, 
chickens, ducks and turkeys. We use, I suppose, five or six pounds 
of butter, and a couple of dozen eggs every week, one or two turkeys 
and other things in proportion. 
Butter here is 3734 cents, eggs 25 to 37%, chickens 75 cents, and 
turkeys one to two dollars; beef 15 cents. . . . Wood $8.00 a 
cord (hickory). 
Yours truly, 
S. F. Barren. 
From Spencer F. Baird to Louis Agassiz. 
Wasuincton, March 16, 1855. 
My pear PrRoFessor:— 
I am ashamed to have kept your last kind letter so long on hand 
unanswered, but I wanted to send you proofs of the plates of Cyprino- 
donts engraved from Sonrel’s drawings for the report of the Mex. 
Boundary in return for the exquisite plates you sent me. These 
were to be furnished in a few weeks then, and I requested the engraver 
to strike off some extra copies, which he promised, and I have been 
waiting patiently for them. A few weeks ago I learned to my great 
disappointment, that he had received the most positive orders from 
the Interior Department not to take any proof whatever, except 
such as were delivered to the office, and that the plates themselves 
had been securely locked up in the Department. I might possibly 
find some old sheets with numerous corrections scratched on them, 
if that would answer, but I have not a clean set myself! We have 
had a hard time this winter with congressional committees and other 
