182
Aug 16 1880
Dear Professor Bessey
I have received your [illegible] a copy of your Botany. I have [illegible] look it with [illegible] care as for buy have [illegible] with it [illegible] on the whole am much pleased with what I have seen. [illegible] look [illegible] on being very handsome.
[illegible] will hear from [illegible] but meantime please [illegible] my thanks for [illegible] me. Very Truly Yours
A. N. [illegible]
183
Oct 29 1880
Dear Prof Bessey
I have received yesterday [illegible] your Botany to a student at the Univ of Wisconsin who wrote me for information [illegible] states that he wished to make the [illegible] a [illegible] sometime [illegible] recommended your book to my own [illegible] classes. There [illegible] express as plainly as [illegible] couldo my [illegible] opinions of your work. I have [illegible] all of [illegible] and some parts of it [illegible] from up my judgement in the [illegible] word excellent. [illegible] that it is perect but I [illegible] my few things [illegible] contribute and [illegible] . Among the things which I [illegible] like in the [illegible] tone of the work which [illegible] the [illegible] [illegible]
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that there were still more. Your arrangment of groups [may?] [?] as a working basis for study; but I hardly think it a very marked improvement on the best of previous arrangements so far as indicating [?] [affinities?] is concerned. For instance, I do not think the difference in the vegetative state between [?] and [?] is sufficient to place them so wide apart, where we take into account their resemblance in their [?] state, coupled with [one want?] of knowledge regarding their sexuality and other phases of their life history. However, I endorse your arrangement of groups as on the whole equally satisfactory with that of [these?] [authors?]. Perhaps your book is a little too comprehensive for [?] use as a text book in our higher schools and even in most of our colleges, as Botany is at prsent thought; but in the hands of a competent teacher I think it is
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well calculated to do most excellent service. In my care I think the tendency of farm work will be to stimulate in no small degree, a [non?] thorough, or perhaps I [will?] express my meaning better by [saying?] a more [?] study of plants and plant's life than has heretofore been the [?] method in most of our schools and colleges throughout the country.
As ever truly yours A. N. Prentiss