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ARNOLD ARBORETUM, HARVARD UNIVERSITY. jamaica plain,mass.,...March...18,...1901. Dear Muir: I thank you cordially for
your letter of congratulations. They are delightful but previous.The Silva is not finished and very little of the last two
volumes is actually written. The publishers have said that it will probably be out during the first half of next year, but
before those two volumes see the light of day I must travel many weary miles and repose in many beds which would make that
delightful hostelry at Waldo, Oregon, appear like the palace of a sybarite.If you stay quietly in Martinez and think that
Canby and I have nothing but fun in hunting Crataegus, that your mind may be disabused of any such idea take the train via
the Southern Pacific in time to meet us at Vicksburg, Mississippi, or Shreveport, Louisiana, both places easily reached from
your part of the world, about the 12th of April and go with us through Arkansas and southern Missouri to St. Louis and then
eastward to Boston. When this journey is over you will have seen many beautiful flowers which you have never seen before and
you will realize that writing Silvas is not all fun.Come on, you need to get away from California again for a while, and you
have always wanted to see our spring flowers.Canby and I probably won't make many more such trips as this and you never will
have a better opportunity to journey with us through the forests of the Mississippi valley.Tele- 0284