I want you to help me a little about Trees; our native trees up to Cornus inclusive, for this year, for the report I have promised the Smithsonian Institution.[155] I wish I had a good assistant; one who could work at botany. Perhaps I can find one abroad. TO JOHN TORREY. February 26, 1849. Having determined on an expedition for Wright, you may be sure I was not going to be altogether disappointed. Accordingly I have got one all arranged (Lowell[156] and Greene subscribing handsomely) which is as much better than Emory’s as possible, and thus far everything has wonderfully conspired to favor it. Wright has left me this morning to go to his mother’s in Connecticut (Wethersfield); there to make his portfolios and presses; comes on to New York soon; takes first vessel for Galveston (I expect a letter from Hastings telling when it sails), and to reach Austin and Fredericksburg in time to accompany the troops that are about to be sent up, by a new road, across a new country, to El Paso, in New Mexico. Look on the map (Wislizenus) and you will see the region we mean him to explore this summer; the hot valley of Rio del Norte, early in the season, the mountains east, and especially those west in summer. He will probably stay two years, and get to Taos and Spanish Peaks this year or next. We shall have government recommendations to protection, and letters to an officer (commanding) who, through Henry, has already made overtures to collect himself or aid in the matter. 26th May, 1849. I have finished all the copy of “Genera Illustrata,” vol. ii., at length; the printer has yet two or three sheets to set up. The plates are working off in New York. It will now soon be off my hands. It is long since I have done anything at Exploring Expedition plants. I am now going at them. It is a shabby, unsatisfactory collection.... CAMBRIDGE, November 2, 1849. ... Sorry I am that you could not be here while Harvey is here; he will he south by Christmas. He desires me to say that he expects to spend the first half of December in New York at Dr. Hosack’s, and will be most glad to see you. I am sure you will like him. We are perfectly charmed with him. A quiet, unaffected, pleasant man--extremely lovable. He works away at a table in my study. His course is a very interesting one. He is a beautiful writer, but not very fluent extempore, though with more practice he would be a fine lecturer. He has a good audience.... Sprague has promised now to take up and finish your quarto drawings. He says he can work but a little while at a time, from a difficulty of breathing. Had I foreseen his health and vigor giving way, I should not have undertaken the Trees, which, as to illustrations (as he is more fond of them than of anything else, and has made fine drawings), we have gradually enlarged our ideas about them much beyond the original plan, as to the figures. He must get this volume off his hands this winter, anyhow. The “Genera” will lie in abeyance....