i9ce. 
Washington, D. C. , April 11 , 
Prof. Oakes Ames, 
Botanical Museum of Harvard University, 
Cambridge, Massachusetts. 
Dear Prof. Ames; 
Your letter reached me a day or two ago , and 
naturally it was very interesting to me. It is difficult to 
decide just what I should say in reply to it. Naturally I 
appreciate the advantages that would be associated with a position 
at the Arnold Arboretum, and I am sure that I should like to work 
there. To have a field limited to woody plants would suit me 
perfectly. The woody plants are almost always the most inter¬ 
esting ones, at least in the tropics, and working with them 
alone one would avoid some of the dfficult and often not very 
interesting groups of herbaceous plants. 
The only thing that makes me disinclined to consider a 
position at the Arnold Arboretum is the fact that I feel compro¬ 
mised to go to the Field Museum the first of June. I have 
given them a promise to that effect, and they have gone ahead 
and done various things with the understanding that I would be 
there in the near future. I doubt- that it would be possible 
to refrain honorably from going there, unless something alto¬ 
gether new should arise. $r. Dahlgren has certainly done every¬ 
thing that he could this winter in the way of preparation for 
the work that I am to do at the Museum. In his last letter 
he informed me that they had just received a copy of Martins’ 
Flora Brasiliensis , which I had stated would be essential for work 
upon tropical American plants. 
From what I saw at the Field Museum last fall , I believe 
that I shall like the work there. There are some conditions there 
that I do not like, but that is likely to be the case anywhere. 
It may be that after I have worked for a while in Chicago I shall 
find that I do not like the position there , but that I rather 
doubt. It seems to me that, as matters are at present , the 
best thing that I can do is to go to Chicago, as I have planned, 
about the middle of May. In case I should decide later that I 
should like to make a change, I shall let you know about it, 
and perhaps then we may come to some agreement. Of course , I 
am not making this suggestion with the expectation that you will 
keep open a position at the Arnold Arboretum that you have-de¬ 
cided to fill. 
At the Field Museum I am to receive forty-six hundred dol¬ 
lars , and I have the promise of five thousand later. 
I am sufficiently sorry that matters have turned out as 
they have, for if the Arnold Arboretum position had been avail¬ 
able first, I have little doubt that I should have preferred it. 
The people at the Field Museum , however, have been very agreeable 
in their dealings with me. 
