Transcription:
Martinez June 24, 1898 My dear Sellers I congratulate you on the happy journey onward of your good father the so called
death - of a good man in ripe age is no more to be deplored than the bright sundown end of a good day Both an alike? natural
ordained by God's love. You need not lament my failure to get the flowers of the magnifica Silver Fir that trip with you,
for I at last found them in all their glory. After searching the woods above Donner Lake in the Washoe Range I went to Shasta,
wallowed up through the snow nearly to the timberline. found not a single female flower only one tree with a few immature
male ones. Then went up the Scott mountains with no better results. Went home corresponded with the botanists I had engaged
to collect illegible elsewhere, but hearing nothing promising from them the time of close of bloom drawing nigh I went again
to Truckee where I left you thence up the Sierra to the rest of the