only one with a college education , the only one who aims beyond the 
reach of bis check on the bank, the only one who can perform and does 
give service above the one paid in cold cash. In our whole agrc. dept. 'K 
there is not a man in charge or even employment who knows the tirst 
thing about practical work,and a newspaper reporter can be elevated to 
decide over the destinies of a man of talent. 
But to return to the subject of your kind advise . Prof, breene 
will receive a last set of my exsiccatae ere I send out tfhe first one. 
I am preparing it now and will have it with him yet this month for fi- 
>nal revision. My book will be out at about the time he gets, through with 
my specimens , and I cannot well do anything ere that. 411 ths# is my 
private work and can , therefore , proceed out slowly. Prof, b-reene has 
not encouraged me when I spread my plan, before, him now years ago , and 
I do not feel like asSjking his assistance^nowf^’I know bwt little about 
the usages of botanists if it comes to laying down rules for the guidan¬ 
ce of others. But I have done the utmost best under the circumstances 
which when a person is about 50 to 90 miles in the mountains and remo¬ 
ved even from where he could feed, his horse, not to say himself' , he can 
prepare specimens just so well and not better.' A snowstorm had just pas¬ 
sed over the Carson Spur ( 6500 ft ] when I visited it lastfin October] 
and if Parnassia Californica is just barely again opening the last blos¬ 
soms , it can be but so good and not better. I want to be liberal with 
my exsiccatae and have enough materaSl for ten sets more if I oould fin^f 
purchasers. If my price is higher than it ought.to be , the Berlin , 
beneve and Vienna herbarium would not have answered by return of mail. 
It will , I trust , be but a few weeks longer ere my book is out , and 
I will have pleasure at the idea that you amongst others will read over 
my lines. I have not got a soul to sp^eak out my mind or my ideas with 
and my good wife is the only company I have for six datsiys in the week. 
But she is a pure soul, a true child of the mountains,, and in the enjoy¬ 
ment of our tysweet home-life I find the recompftnsation this world allows 
/ 
