I can't thank you enough for your help on Monday. You really saved my skin. Better yet, you managed to do me a favor that neither I nor my companions will ever forget!

You see, Monday morning when I took your figures into Sabbling's office, Phaze got there first. He had just about convinced her that the project was impossible and she should fire me without delay. Just as I walked in, he was telling her, "Ms. Sabbling, I'm so sure that this is all a scam that I'll stake my job on it. If mousy old George can pull it off, I'll resign." Well, mousy old George pulled it off with your help, and Sabbling wasted no time at reminding him of his vow. I guess his snow job didn't work as well on her as we all thought it did. What a party we had to celebrate! Thank you again!

It's probably not quite polite to ask you for help again in a thank you note, but you were so helpful last time I'm going to risk it.

Sabbling was so impressed with my (meaning your) mathematical prowess that she put me in charge of the new leaf-measuring project. There are all sorts of things we do where knowing the surface area of a leaf would help us&emdash;knowing how much insecticide to order, figuring out how much sunlight a leaf could absorb, etc. Unfortunately, this figuring out business isn't as easy as it seems.

Just as a "for example", I photocopied two leaves on the back page. One is from a White Poplar, a tree introduced during colonial times and very hardy in cities. The other is from a Spotted Oak, sometimes called a Shumard Oak after the state geologist of Texas in the mid 1800's. One of my employees, Frank, says the Oak leaf is larger&emdash;it's clearly longer. Betty says that the Poplar leaf is larger, because it's wider. I have no way of knowing who is right or by how much.

Do you know of any way of figuring out the surface area of a leaf to, say, within one square inch? If you could tell me the area of each of these leaves, I'd be most grateful. Better yet, if you could let me know how to do it for general leaves, I could have Frank and Betty do it in the future, so I won't have to bug you any more. They're both embarking on a big measuring project in 2 weeks, so getting an answer by October 6 would be greatly appreciated.

Yours most gratefully,

George Bush

Associate Vice President for DisInfection