R.B,#2. 



to stop. In this country they levy the tax from business- income 

 after an average of 3 years, A man who carries on any business has 

 to pay a considerable tax after his annual profit, calculated after 

 an average of three years. If the years get sterile, and he does not 

 earn a penny, no matter, he must pay the tax on, after the amount 

 of the two preceding years, divided "by three, a screw without end. 

 The end is, if he gives up the business. I got in the same situation 

 when I had to pay the income-tax for the second year already, without 

 having had any business- income. I declared to the office 1916 that 

 I have an obligation to America, a shipment of models to Harvard 

 University, paid beforehand to be shipped after end of war, and I 

 farther am giving up the business, living by my savings (Privatus) 

 So my work was quietly resting during the uneasy years. I had to 

 do enough in house and garden. The models finished since 1913 con- 

 sist cf several greups of enlarged models of flowers and insects f.i. 



Sarothamnus, Asclepias, the trimorphism etc in the way known to 

 you. Some plants are yet in hand that I am about to finish. Shipping 

 at present would be impossible. The state of forwarding, railroad 

 and sea-matters is yet awfully unsafe and nothing set again. 



A dreadful calamity in our country is the scarcity of fuel. 

 Coal is portioned in small quantities only against official ticket. 

 We get only some ooal for a very moderate heating of one room be- 

 side the kitchen- stove. My workroom is condemned to chill since years, 

 and as I like some occupation, I took a working table to our sit ting- 

 room* Wood is much felled now in the forests about here, but the 

 green material is not much worth and the rates are horrid. A metre 

 uncleft wood, quite a small heap, 7 l/2 Marks before the war, costs 

 at prosent 30 Marks. The same oase is with everything, the cost of 

 living surpasses the ten, and twentyfold of the former rates. The 

 scarcity was mending during the past months owing to the imports 



