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ARNOLD ARBORETUM,HARVARD UNIVERSITY. jamaica plain,mass,...October.17,...........1900. My dear Muir: I find on ray return
from the south your letter of September 18th and the package of Birch.I hope we shall get some good seed-out of this and the
specimen of bark is certainly valuable.Many thanks for your trouble in the matter. I have had rather a weary trip which took
me first via Chicago to St. Louis and then down as far as the Red River in Arkansas, and so home by the way of Memphis, Rome,
Augusta, etc.I thought of you at Rome and am sorry to say that the hotel there which you so much admired has deteriorated.It
isn't nearly as good as it was two years ago.Canby could not get off to go with me, so I had a pretty lonely trip and generally
an unsuccessful one as these Crataeguses won't fruit when they ought to.Perhaps you are right in your suggestion that I am
devoting too much time to the genus, still it is pretty interesting and Just now I do not know a better piece of dendrological
work than my effort to throw some light on the peculiarities of these troublesome fellows.I stopped with Canby a couple of
days on my way home and we went up as far as the Delaware water gap together.Now I am home for the winter I hope, and I have
got more work on fly hands than I can possibly get through. I wish we could get together for a talk over the Redwood reservation
business.Perhaps by next spring you will have devel- 02732