NORTH EASTON, MASS. 
July 11, 1333. 
Ly dear L'r. Edwards: 
Throughout, the tone of your letter of June 23, 
1933, is most disturbing and disheart ning. If you but realized it, 
you are attempting to justify an attitude that is inexplicable on 
any reasonable basis. Review the facts: You ask to be allowed to 
collect for the Arnold Arbpretum and name your own terms, They are 
accepted. After atime you begin to complain of the heavy expenses 
you are put to and suggest that you can make more money by collecting 
for several institutions. You as’- for an increase. It is granted. 
Again you complain of your expenses and tell me that you can ma e 
more money as a general collector. The Arboretum grants permission 
for you to withdraw from your contract a d offers to take woody 
specimens and orchids up to three thousand dollars. Then you accuse 
us of attempting to thro you over in spite of our explanation of 
our attitude, namely that at the rate you collect, it would be much 
more advantageus for the Arboretum to pay you on a per specimen basis 
as would the o her institutions with which you might enter into an 
agreement. Then you tell m that one reason for my desire to meet 
your terms is the sudden discovery that for us the Honduran flora 
has proved to be less productive of results than we had hoped. You 
write "You merely took a gamble that the country had many mmtt species 
- I have found many- but now that they are not coming in as fast or 
plentiful as you had hoped you want to call the deal off'.' You will 
never make a more absurd statement or a more inaccurate one if yotC 
live to round out a century of time, e are not dissatisfied with the 
flora or the absence of new species, r e are dissatisfied with your 
performance and it is our duty and privilege to tell you so. Take for 
example your recently received numbers of orchids, nos. 390 to 423. 
These nambers by the label records, cover the time between March 28 
and i ay 31. In April you were afield nine days. You collected thirteen 
orchid numbers. In . ay you -ere afield ten days and in that time you 
collected about fifteen orchid numbers. This r cord speaki|§jj£or itself. 
The record for woody plants is not any more creditable oi§ understandable. 
You speak of your hardships. Of course I do not know how far away from 
your base you explore,(the label records do not indicate much consecutive 
time spent in the field), but on the evidence it is clear that at any 
time of year, you do not spend as much time afield as doff the average 
collector. Coming back to the last shipment: You spent about thirty- 
four days afield between March 28 and lay 31 and collected one orchid 
each day on the average. Then you refer to my record round Tela and 
inform me that the Tela region is richer than your mountain region and 
that I had the resources of the Finalt Company behind me. If we use your 
term gamble, I am ready to gamble that the coastal regions are poorer 
in orchids than your ra untain region. I was afield every day from early 
morning until evening and my pressing and note-making had to be done 
in the closing hours of the day In three weeks in a poor countyy I 
collected about three time as many species ason the record before me 
you collected in about two months, I was a transient; you are a resident. 
