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ARNOLD ARBORETUM, HARVARD UNIVERSITY. Jamaica Plain, Mass.February.. 23,.........1899. My dear Muir: I am distressed
to learn from your letter of the 16th that your wife is still suffering from the grippe and that you are having an unsatisfactory
time of it. I hope the advent of spring will restore her to health. I have had about asunsatisfactory a winter as you have,
and practically have accomplished nothing but letter-writing. I mulled over Crataegus so long that my mind is blank. You
do not say if you have received the twelfth volume of The Silva. I am anxious to hear how you liket, for although small in
bulK it cost a lot of hard work. Even Canby does not appear to have discovered that it is dedicated to him. I return your
newspaper cuttings and Mr. Van Trump's excellent letter. He seems to be a good man. The Coville to whom he refers is the botanist
of the Department of Agriculture who was sent out by Bliss to demonstrate the fact that sheep would not injure the Cascade
mountain forests. I feel perfectly helpless in this matter now. As long as the present Incumbent is in the General Land Office
it is useless to hope for much relief from the sheep. He is an Oregon politician given over body and soul to the sheep men.
The whole situation is monstrous, and if we try to improve it we shall be met with the statement that Pinchot and the other
Government experts believe in forest pasturage. These men have done the country incalculable dam- 02547