While doing research for the book two years ago at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, I eagerly read all the correspondence between Percival Lowell, the observatory's Boston Brahmin founder, and his top assistant Vesto Slipher (the astronomer who would later be the first to discover galaxies moving outward). Lowell, often traveling on business during the early 1900s, remained in close contact with Slipher about all kinds of matters. From afar, Lowell offered his advice on matters astronomical (“Don’t observe sun much. It hurts lenses.”), administrative (“Permit nobody whatever in observatory office…”), and personal (“Will you kindly see if shredded wheat biscuit are to be got at Haychaff.”). 
But I laughed out loud in the library (fortunately, only I and the archivist Antoinette Beiser were there at the time) when I came across a wonderful series of letters regarding the observatory's garden. I told Antoinette then and there that I was determined to include the story in my book. Here's how it turned out:Lowell doted on his observatory garden and insisted on news of its condition whenever he was away. “How fare the squashes?” asked Lowell one year as fall harvest approached. His letter the following week closed with, “My regards to the squashes.” And finally, “You may when the squashes ripen send me one by express.”
Slipher did not respond. “Why haven’t I received squashes. Express at once if possible,” Lowell anxiously telegraphed right after Christmas. Slipher reluctantly had to answer that the poor gourds, alas, had shriveled up and died.
All was forgiven, though, by next spring [1902]. “Thank you for taking so much pains with the garden! Just keep on planting and you will get something,” wrote Lowell. Slipher did; by July he was sending Lowell his latest bounty. “Your vegetables came all right and delighted me hugely,” replied Lowell. More were sent in October.
As with his gardening, Slipher made progress on the spectrograph as well, eventually becoming a virtuoso at its operation....
Above images: (top) Percival Lowell and (bottom) Vesto Slipher (Lowell Observatory Archives)
