NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 
to day, to be an instrument in his hands 
for the furtherance of a great work. 
But to come back to the breakfast which 
must be eaten some time, whether before, 
or after, or during the hours of early superin- 
tendence. It consists of simple food, a trifle 
old-fashioned as regards fads, but ample and 
wholesome and balanced. If for the moment 
there is nothing particularly pressing in the 
experimental plots, he gives an hour or two 
after breakfast to his more important cor- 
respondence. Time was when he attended in 
person to every letter that came, so absolutely 
conscientious was he toward this as toward 
every other demand of his lifework, but the 
day came when to do this and have any time 
for the thousands of other more imperative 
demands upon him was out of the question. 
So he shifts the main responsibility of cor- 
respondence upon other shoulders. And yet 
there still remain many letters, in the very 
nature of the work itself, answering of which 
he may not easily delegate,—letters from men 
of prominence in the scientific world, letters 
from devoted friends, communications relative 
to important steps in this or that creation 
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