Ralph Waldo Emerson writes to his wife Lidian:
Tis certain that the M[assachusetts]. Q[uarterly]. J[ournal]. will fail unless Henry Thoreau & [Amos Bronson] Alcott & [William Ellery] Channing and Charles Newcomb,—the fourfoldvisaged four,—fly to the rescue . . . I have not ventured at this long space to say anything of garden or orchard. Henry & Mr [Edmund?] Hosmer must advise & act or rather Henry by & with the counsel & practice of Hosmer The main object is the trees; and there is a good heap of manure, & more to be made by bringing peat to the sewer in the garden. But we ought, I suppose, to have good corn & potatoes also. I hope Henry will not decline to arrange it. He says I do not write to him, or you say it, but I have, almost sheet for sheet, as I believe.
(The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 4:56-58)
