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Amherst, Ms Apr 18, 1879
My dear Prof. Bessey, Many thanks for your very kind letter, received nine days since. An unusual amount of work is my excuse for letting a reply go over from day to day. The house you speak of is no doubt suitable and a good chance that may not occur often. But I should not wish to become [ ] responsible for it from a fixed date, so long as there are uncertainties still of the kind already explained. So I may as well take my chances after moving, or immediately before. At the worst we can board a while.
I am sorry you are not relieved from zoology and Prof. M. from geology
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but I presume that duties are equalised in some way, and I hope the Trustees will divide [?] as a bonus the salary that would have been paid to me meanwhile, if I had been on the ground.
What a season! a driving snow-storm to-day, and the old snow not yet wholly gone.
With best regards to Pres. Welch, I am Yours sincerely H. W. Parker
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Amherst, Mass. June 7, '79
My dear Professor, A stray number of your college paper in our reading room leads a student _ Mr Casparian, a native Armenian from Nicomedia in Asiatic Turkey, _ to inquire through me what prospect he could have of supporting himself in your college (which takes his fancy because among other attractions, the expenses are less than here). by his four years' experience as a printer, his considerable accomplishments as an engraver, his several months' work in our college plant-house and, in fact, by any labor
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whatever, he being an ingenious, willing and strong-bodied man of 22 years. He drew and engraved the [?] experiment illustrations in our last annual report. His character seems to be excellent, and his proficiency good in study, though I have not had him in my classes.
I take this occasion to ask if you have, or anyone has, investigated the crytogamous growth ramifying your prairie subsoil? - to the depth of at least 8 or 10 feet I found it, in part shrivilled and black and