75 
Dear Mr. I'air child: 
A number of letters from you have come in 
of late and I'll answer them before I disappear 
for some time in the vnMds. 
Letter of May 10, 191?. together with en- 
closures, all relating to the white pine blister 
rust. Yes, I'll be on the lookout for this 
fungus on either Ribes or Pinus armandi . It is 
only in the higher mountains that one finds these 
plants here in Central China. It is remarkable 
that this fungus ,is so extremely widely spread 
over the globe I 
Letter of May P4, I917. -^bout Prof. Reimer 
going to Japan and China. Yes, it is the best 
thing he could do; nobody could tell him exactly 
how pears behave in their native countries and 
since he is a man who has done independent in- 
vestigation work, he surely deserves support. 
I am somewhat afraid, however, that he over- 
estimates the ease and facilities of travel, 
especially in China, but we will see. 
As regards seeing Mr. Merrill, well, I'll 
postpone that until possibly this winter. Mat- 
ters are so unstable all over the world that we 
are only able to make plans a few weeks or a 
few months ahead . 
Letter of June 7, 1917. About the ?00 lbs. 
of seeds of Pistacia chinensis for Mr. Swingle. 
?/ell, I sav; a letter in Mr. Gilchrist's possession, 
at Ichang, in which the number POO occurred and I 
believe Mr. Cunningham, our Consul General here, 
wrote it. Now it is just possible that the 
stenographer made 200 out of 20. No, I did not 
make exactly a contract for 200 lbs. ; as such I 
will only send 10 to 20 lbs., although the tree 
really is well worth while disseminating on a 
large scale. Your remark, that 200 lbs. would 
be more than you care to handle under vmr con- 
ditions, seems to show that our gardens and of- 
fice may be short of funds and of help. I hope 
the large quantities of Amygdalus davidiana , Pinus 
bungeana , walnuts and jujubes I sent in this 
winter can be handled, otherwise enterprising 
nurserymen might take them over. 
As regards a climatic phenomena, known as 
the February thaw in America, no, I do not think 
we have anything like it here in China. There 
are too many mountain ranges running from the 
east to the west and bodies of air cannot move 
freely north and south, as in Amel-ica. One 
therefore finds a slow cooling off in the fall 
and a slow warming up in the spring of almost 
December 31, 1917. 
