p.2

As a financial policy it would be best
to ask the state to cancel the bonds and pay
the interest directly to the proposed institution.
This would prevent all danger of loss, and thus
secure permanency. A portion of the
income might be reserved for a few years to
pay for a building, which need not be a
very expensive structure. It might be located
on some public park.

If you will endow such an institution
and afford me an opportunity of building it up,
I will donate to it, as a nucleus, all my herbarium
(about 8000 species) my collection of vegetable products,
including fossil plants, and all my books
on botanical, horticultural, and agricultural
subjects; also the two story brick house
25 feet front on Poplar Street now occupied
as my office, library, and cabinet, with the
ground on which it stands.

Of course, numerous details must be considered,
which it is not worth while to enumerate here.

Yours very truly

I. A. Lapham

Alex Mitchell Esq.