Cocomat Grove, 
Florida 
Feb. 17th, 1922. 
Dear Friend Rock: 
Sitting before the open fire with little Nancy looking 
at the pictures I read your Geographic article on the hunt"” 
for the ohaulmoogra trees. It is a fine article full of 
real live interest and cannot fail to arouse a great interest 
in you and your work. 
I have met here in Coconut Grove Hiram Bingham who was 
born in Hawaii and who has just bought a place on Maui, and 
he knows„Dean and gives me just the same impression that you 
have about him. He is a trifle inclined I fear to want 
more credit than he deserves. Isn't it enough to have 
suggested the use of the esthers without claiming to have 
oeiginated or discovered them? I feel sure that your 
reference to Power as the discoverer of the esthers is the 
only ethical thing to have done, and you are the man to stand 
on that ground, even though Dean may not. It hurts nobody to 
give of your credit liberally and carefully. 
I got a funny letter from Dr. Heiser. He evidently is 
all mixed up in his mind with regard to the botany of the 
chaulmoogra oil producing species and when he says that Dean 
thinks the esthers can be synthesized, I am skeptical. Power 
is positive in his belief that it's entirelv too complicated 
a compound -to synthesizS; even if it could be synthesized, 
the expense would be prohitibitve. So I guess you'are safe on 
the chaulmoogra oil producing trees, at least, so far as your 
part goes. How long it will be before plantation chaulmoogra 
oil is on the market is another story. 
In. Simmonds' lath house I saw some of your oaks and 
chestnuts and a Bombax which you sent in. I want them on 
my place here in memory of you. I think we ha.ve found why his 
potted plants were so bad. The water he was using (best we 
could get them} was so full of lime and salt that it almost 
killed them. I doubt though if any plants which require an ac£L 
soil in which to grow will do well here where the soil has a 
hydrogen-ion concentration of from 1000 to 3000 alkalinity. We 
are new experimenting with Ecidified water. Covilie has found 
that in greenhouse work blueberries win grow in soil watered 
with alum^Ssf'well as they do in peat. 
I am heartbroken over the sudden death here in Miami of 
Dr. Walter Van Fleet, the distinguished plant breeder on whom 
we were depending to cross and hybridize the Yunan chestnuts with 
the American and other Asiatic species and perhaps even to get 
a. hybrid with Castanopsis. He was only 62. A committee of 
