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ARNOLD ARBORETUM, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, Jiimaica pLAIN,Mass.,......January 7,1899. My dear Muir: I realize greatly the
importance of being up and moving.If we do not do it we shall soon die of old age.Just now, however, Crataegus gives me as
much mental and physical activity as I can stand. When this new field is exhausted and you have got those Birch flowers from
Alaska I shall be ready to start forth again on our travels. I have been in New York this week for a day hunting up Crataegus
in the Columbia College Herbarium and was fortunate enough to see the Gilders.They speak of you with enthusiasm, somewhat
mitigated, however, by the regret that a man who appears so intelligent and evidently has seen so much has a constitutional
objection to talking.Gilder has become a terrible glacier sharp and talked with me for a long time about glaciers which he
thinks he has discovered on his Berkshire farm.I should not be surprised if he wrote a book about them before long. I cannot
make out about your annual fruiting Sequoia.Wild specimens which Miss Eastwood got for me certainly show biennial behavior,if
you are going to San Francisco some day, take a branch from your tree and show it to Miss Eastwood who a year or two ago was
very keen on the subject. Mrs. Sargent is still shut up with the grippe but is better. A dull enough winter here with nothing
but sickness and Crataegus. 02524