Transcription:
ARNOLD ARBORETUM, HARVARD UNIVERSITY. Jamaica Plain Mass., June 8, 1897. My dear Muir: I am much obliged for your note
of May 31st with information about Pinus Sabiniana. I have read your article fcn Harper's Weekly with a great deal of pleasure.
It is admirable and it ought to have been published a month earlier, although I do not know if anything would have changed
the course of events. I feel pretty blue about the outlook in which I cannot see a single redeeming feature. I cannot divest
myself of the idea that the director of the Geological Survey induced Bliss to hold back our report until the time when it
might have done any good had passed. I am strengthened in this belief by the fact that Hague threw every obstacle in the way
of the appearance of the report when it did, and nothing but vigorous talk induced him to sign it on the 1st of May. The director
of the Survey has been boasting that he and Hague would get the entire control of the reservations and run them to suit themselves.
What this may mean I do not know. The mere opening of the reservations for plunder another year is bad enough but this is
insignificant, I think, in comparison with the authority now given to the Secretary to open all the reservations under such
regulations as he may establish, as this means that any chance for a good administration in the future is destroyed. The plunderers
having got all they 02295