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THE WORLD'S WORK FARMING DOUBLEDAY PAGE CO. 133-135-137 EAST 16TH STREET, NEW YORK COUNTRY LIFE IN AMERICA THE
GARDEN MAGAZINE July 28, 1908. Dear Mr. Muir: Since I wrote to you a day or two ago this thought has occurred to me:
I remember that you told me that there was a continual demand for some newspaper letters that were among your earliest writings.
I suspect that a good deal of the matter in these newspaper letters might make a good book if you take a good part of it and
get it in shape. I know very well how difficult it is to do this. In the first place, the mere physical labor of arranging
old things of this sort deters a man. Now comes my suggestion. There is a young man at Fresno. Mr. French Strother, who was
for several years a member of my editorial staff. He is one of the nicest fellows I ever knew and he is a very capable literary
workman. I believe he met you on a train once somewhere out in California. I recall distinctly that ha wrote some anecdotes
in the magazine about you. How it might be helpful to you if you would let Strother come to see you and spend a week with
yon or in your neighborhood, or a month, if need be, and let him arrange and straighten out these things in a way that would
be helpful to you; and he could do any sort of physical work that you would permit him to do about getting your reminiscenes
or autobiography, or whatever you are going to call that great book, into shape. The privilege of being of some such service
as this would make Strother very happy indeed. I can think of nothing in the world that would be ao inter-eating an experience
for him. He left our service because his health made it necessary to move away from Hew York. He cannot safely live in a big
city, and he went back to Fresno where his kinspeople live, but he is motets happy only when he is writing, and he would bring
one of the finest enthusiasms you ever saw to the task of serving you. If you can find it convenient to let him have some
time with you in this way I should be glad to put him at your service.04250