Buchenau, Franz 
1869, April 17th 
Bremen, Germany 
TRANSLATION 
Bremen 17th April 1369 
Dr. Gg. Engelmann, Kreuznach 
Dear friend, 
Your kind letter of the 16th of this month arrived just an hour ago and I 
shall answer it immediately, since I have a quiet hour Saturday evening which 
now doesn't happen very often. 
I was so happy to hear that you had such a beautiful time with such wonderful 
impressiorsßand rich in scientific discoveries. Who has the inclination to make 
such studies as you did, will profit from seeing all these collections. Certainly, 
your studies of the conifers have profited much by talking to Parlatore; then we 
shall soon hear more about them. I am sure there are not as many genera in 
existence as described. 
Things have not gone very well for me during the last seven months. I was 
physically well ( and also my bad migrainf headaches did not bother me too much), 
but we suffered here in the house very much from the whooping-cough of the children, 
and my wife also had an attack of it). Everybody is well now, enjoying our beauti- 
ful green woods and we hope for a complete convalescence at the sea (middle of 
July to middle of August) which the doctor prescribed for us. 
I did not do much scientific work. After a long time of my temporary 
position (after the death of my dear director, of which I wrote you earlier), the 
Senate appointed me director of the school with the title of Professor, a large 
school (12 classes, 450 students). However I did not have the time for any 
scientific work this title implies! Already, prior to my appointment, one of my 
best and capable teachers died of a chronic kidney infection; in January another 
one became very ill so that he had to be pensioned off. That meant I had to get 
three new teachers. On top of all that came the new burden which befell the 
institution due to the military conditions, fighting some sloppiness, teachers 
who had to be reformed, doing only half their duty, which they were used to and 
had to be watched constantly --finally the other things I have to do, of which I 
shall only mention the teacher's examination commission and the military examinations, 
so you won't be surprised when I tell you that I hardly took a plant package in 
my hands; the microscope is sitting next to me packed up, which hadn't been the 
case for the last thirteen years and during the entire winter, I probably did not do 
