Transcription:
ARNOLD ARBORETUM, HARVARD UNIVERSITY. Jamaica Plain, Mass, December 24, 1897. My dear Muir: How are you getting on?
You seem as quiet, so far as I am concerned, as one of those Patton Spruces buried under twenty feet of Sierra snow. The
year ends badly for me because it will see the demise of Garden and Forest. For ten years I have worked like a dog to get
this paper established because a paper of the kind seems needed in this country, but it is no go. I cannot find people enough
who are interested in its subjects to make it financially successful, and, unless a paper is financially successful, it is
only a matter of a little longer or a little shorter time when its end must come. I have sunk already more money in it than
I should have and I cannot sink more now that I feel satisfied after ten years' experiment that the paper cannot be made permanently
successful. Since I got back from California I have done nothing but attend to it, and now that this burden is off my hands
I shall be able, I hope, to complete The Silva next year. When this is done we can start for India, Siberia, China, Mexico,
the Caucasus, or anywhere else you may want to go. In the meantime what are we going to do about forestry matters? It won't
do to sit idly and allow Bliss and his crowd to exterminate them, but I haven't an idea how the matter is to be attacked.
With Stiles I have lost my best hold on 02375