I received your welcome Monthly for March, and found it full of interesting news. I gather from it that gardening in the East is advancing very much. Out here we are getting along nicely too, and although living near the desert - as you were pleased to call it last year - you could not find a finer landscape than we have at present. It would rejoice the heart of any lover of flowers to see the variety of bloom the next two months will give. The wonder is that they are not more in demand in the East for hardy border plants. There are here wild flowers, finer and larger than any of the cultivated ones.

Hundreds of fine grasses, cactus, and curiosities abound, and if I knew some certain time that you would have a meeting in the interest of flowers I would send some.

Five years ago I visited this part of Kansas and was so delighted with it that I made up my mind to go west. I packed up a car in Pittsburgh with sashes and all things needed at first in gardening, and after many ups and downs I have not regretted it. I have a good home, good greenhouse, 100 hot-bed sash, water-pipes, etc, occupying a half-acre; can sell all I raise on the place. I have ten acres of the best land planted with fruit and vegetables, and better still, all is free of debt at present.

My business will not grow to the size of Ellwan-ger & Barry's, or Landreth's, but into a very nice one for me. Salina is well situated, being in one of the finest valleys. There are prospects of getting this season two new railroads here. We have water-works, three flour mills, one that makes 600 barrels of flour per day, fine opera house of three stories, etc, and in short the desert is not so bad a place to live in after all.