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ARNOLD ARBORETUM, HARVARD UNIVERSITY. Jamaica Plain, Mass., March 29 ,1902. Dear Muir: What in the world has become
of you in all these months? Have you passed on to another world or are you shut up somewhere in this one beyond the reach
of pen and paper? Let me know what you are about and when you are coming east to learn something about Crataegus. So far
as The Silva is concerned it is off my hands at last, and I am just putting the finishing touches on volume xiv. The two final
volumes will be out in the course of a month or two, I hope, or as soon as we can get the last engraving done in Paris. Are
you getting ready for the greatest effort of your life in the way of a review of The Silva, to be published in The Atlantic?
You know you promised this long ago to the publishers. Really there is no one else in the country who can do the subject justice.
Will you be ready in a year from this time to start on our trip over the Siberian Railroad? This is business. I mean to go
and I want you to go with me, Leaving here in April and going via Europe you ought to be at home again in California by Christmas
time. Lots of new trees to see on this trip. Here is the great opportunity of your life to prove that you are really not the
quitter you have the reputation of being. Canby has not been well, I am afraid, this winter and the cares of life are beginning
to bother him. I hope, however, we shall 02974