16, March 1931.Dear Abby,
Your good letter of Feb. 21 arrived Saturday night. I had tried to write last week but was overwhelmed with a multitude of thigs, the final things in the laboratory - andyou [sic] know how many they are.
I wrote a brief I.I. yesterday of which I shall send you a copy, and here I am writing Monday morning between chota and breakfast. I have begun the week with the resolution not to try to do everything in one week, and I ended last week feeling quite exhausted. It is impossible to work here as one works at home; I feel it immediately when I try, so I don't try very often. At present I am conscious of so very many things that I would like to do before I leave.
Last week I re-catalogued the Botany library. It wasn't as much of an undertaking as I could wish, but it did take some hours. It had been numbered consecutively merely to keep track of the books, but not with any idea of grouping. The main linrary [sic] is on the Dewey system so I used that with the necessary modifications.
The Garden. I am trying to get the part at the Science Building end into some sort of shape and with the sort of planting that will help my successors. Our drive has been unattractive and I am working on that. I also have a portion of the rock garden in the hostel which I would like to finish. The rocks had stood around for over two years waiting to be put in when I tackled it last November, during the monsoon; I finished one half but the rocks gave out and the other half - the less conspicuous half - is still waiting rocks and plants. Gardening in the tropics - the arid tropics - is a story in itself. I put in a collection of trees and shrubs in October. Then we had the super-monsoon and they stood in water for nearly two months, poor things, and many died of it. Now we are having the dry season - no rain since Christmas and a HOT sun, poor things again; they have to be watered as much as possible, but as the water is all carried by gardeners and coolies in metal jars - no hoses in this part of the world - there is a limit to the mount of watering that can be done. And then there is the difficulty of keeping the gardeners at work; I really can't spend all my time watching them, nor can Mrs. John. I am trying to introduce greater variety into our trees and shrubs in the compound; we need it for systematic work as we have had to buy too much from the Agri-Horticultural Garden.
The Herbarium. I have collected hundreds of plants since I came to Madras and am having the Lab. Attendant mount them. I have determined most of them but still have a considerable number on hand. After they are mounted I have to write the labels; I dare not trust anyone else with that as it needs to be done by a person who will know if a label has been mixed! e.g. a Composite called Malva, which I found last week. Also, as most of the labels are in my writing no one else can read them, alas. I have decided to burn everything that is unlabelled when I leave - no one else will bother with them. Most of this is for the W.C.C. as tropical plants are of no great use at M.H.C. unlessof [sic] economic importance. Ferns, of course, I am taking back.
One of my big jobs this week is to go over the student collections and name the plants, if possible. The B.A. candidates (we have 5 who are Botany "Mains") have to present a herbarium at the time of their examination. They are not required to name them themselves - they are not trained to do it, only to assign plants to the families which they have studied, 55 families. I do not approve of the requirement and have registered my protest which had not the slightest effect. It is very important to have a good herbariuma t college so that students can name plants by comparison. India is so big! and the vegetation is so varied! My chief difficulty is with the Travancore specimens; I have no Flora and Hooker is not complete. How could it be with its age? My training out here has been mostly systematic. It has not been a good place to get fern material and I have had very little time to work on it if I had had it.
I am looking foward to Java. The Director wrote a very cordial letter and said that they had 15 species of the Marattiaceae growing in the Botanical Garden; that is my next field of work - I have already dabbled with two species. It is a small family and 15 species will be as much as I can hope to do, even if I can make them all germinate.
My plans are still in an unsettled state. There is no boat at just the right time for San Francisco, so I shall probably have to go early. I have noteven [sic] fixed the date for leaving Madras. I would like to go to Darjeeling but do I want to go alone? Edith thinks that a Mrs. Winant who may come to see us, may want to go, and may want company. She was commended to Edith by Helen Beardsley Potter (I think that is the name) as a person of charm, position and wealth, the wife of the Governor of New Hampshire (?) or something of the sort. If I can't get company and if I lose my zest at the prospect of going alone I shall go to Singapore with Eleanor April 22nd, perhaps to Siam, and then to Java. I shall stop in Formosa to visit Setti and Professor Hibino (he wrote a most cordial letter and sent a most alluring check list of Formosan plants); anything else depends on when boats sail. It is of almost no use to make out an itinerary without dates of sailings. I have alist [sic] at Cook's now waiting to be filled out for me.
I have been wanting to tell you I had Helen Patch's suite for next year - my old suite. She wrote that she was going to France and to cable if I wanted the suite, so I said I did. My furniture is there and it would be so much simpler to go right into it than to have to move furniture and settle from the gorund up. The suite of the Dorothy's [sic] is the one I would take, on account of my brother and his wife; I would like to be able to put them up for a night occasionally. It will be nice to be near you. I wonder if it will seem lonesome when I return.
Class II examinations begin to-day. The Nat. Sci. group is a poor one and not more than half deserve to pass, but probably more will. The Class IV exams do not begin until next Monday but I shall be giving them a "Proactical" this week and have confernces. [sic] I love my class IV girls and hate to leave them - such a nice group - Syrian Christians, Tamils, one Telugu and two Hindus. One Syrian Christian has a husband and baby in Travancore. The whole class ought to pass but nothing is certain; all are better than most of last year's, and they all passed even if they did not deserve to. The type of written exam is poor and does not discriminate between good, mediocre and poor. The exams for classes I and II are college exams and begin next Friday. It is customary here to have no classes for at least a week before exams - the class IV students have little or no class work for 2 or 3 weeks. So much depends on the results of the university examn [sic] - the type of position which they may take, the chance to do university work, not to mention the social prestige! It is a great pity to have so much of their life depend on one thing.
Now it is time for breakfast and I must stop, with great uncertainty about resuming.
With much love,
AlmaP.S. I am having a fine time with my camera. A.
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