71 
disheartened! 
I got another man, "but he will need lots 
of training again "before he knows about my work 
what the other one did! 
Mr. Eairchild wrote Mr. Meyer the following interesting let- 
ter on July 27, 1917: ' 
My dear Meyer: 
It will "be hard to give you a reflection 
of conditions here in Washington, - streets 
filled with soldiers, the town filling up with 
people, prolDably 50,000 nev/ residents here 
since the first of January, auto traffic con- 
gesting every important street corner, and the 
whole town as "busy as it is in the busiest week 
of Christmas time, and here we are nearly the 
first of August. 
On account of the war, and the need for 
space here in this building by branches of the 
service more closely connected with the war 
program, we are to move our offices up to 13th 
and P Sts., a new large office building where 
we get nearly twice as much floor space as we 
have here, though not twice as much light. We 
will probably get up there about the 1st of 
September. We shall feel the move very keenly, 
but I have come to feel that all changes of 
location have compensating advantages, as T 
believe we will find when we get up there. A 
fewer number of interruptions from unimportant 
callers will be one thing, and more time to gire 
to the serious questions of plant introduction 
wo rk . 
I am very sorry that I have had to neglect 
my personal contacts v;ith you through letters as 
of old. I realize keenly that you must feel the 
need of suggestions for your exploration work, 
but I assure you that the crowd of daily duties 
make these long distance calls for suggestions 
very difficult to handle. This is increased of 
course as the years go by, by a decreasing 
familiarity v;ith Chinese conditions gained by 
personal experiences in China. It is nov/ fifteen 
years since I was there, unfortunately, and many 
of my memories are becoming dim. I can give you, 
however, a reflection of a change in the attitude 
December 31, 1917' 
