Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation
A Research Division of Carnegie Mellon University

Hunt Institute Archives Text Discovery Platform

Search a large and growing portion of our online collections, including handwritten documents.
PROTOTYPE

This prototype uses state-of-the-art artificial intelligence, including a vision-language model (VLM) capable of reading handwritten documents as well as typed and printed text, to create searchable transcriptions of digitized materials in the Hunt Institute Archives. This makes it possible to search the textual contents of individual pages, including material that may not be described in the archival catalog.

Use Keyword search for specific words, names, dates, scientific names, or phrases. Try Semantic search (experimental) to describe a topic, question, or kind of material when you do not know the exact wording used in the documents.

About the AI-generated transcriptions

The transcriptions are generated automatically from page images and may contain errors, especially with difficult handwriting, unusual names, multiple languages, image-quality problems, or complex layouts. They are intended primarily as a discovery aid rather than authoritative transcriptions.

Each result provides the generated transcription and links to the original digitized material and associated archival description so that readings can be checked against the source. The transcription workflow uses AI models run locally by the Hunt Institute.

About Keyword and Semantic search

Keyword search is the default and matches the wording in the transcriptions. Results contain all your terms. Use quotes for an exact phrase. Substring matching is supported, so aceae can find plant-family names ending in -aceae.

Semantic search (experimental) is useful when you know what kind of material you are looking for but do not know the words used in the documents. It ranks transcribed passages by similarity of meaning, so relevant results may not contain the exact words in your query.

Semantic queries can be broad research topics, descriptions of activities or relationships, or natural-language questions. For example:

plant collecting and fieldwork in South America medicinal, culinary, or other traditional uses of plants chromosomes and plant classification early herbals and botanical illustrations botanical institutions exchanging plants, seeds, and specimens microscopy and photomicrography in botanical research How did botanists and gardeners introduce plants from one region to another? grafting, budding, and propagation of tropical fruit crops

Semantic search is not a chatbot: a question is used as a search query, and the system returns archival passages that appear conceptually related to it rather than generating an answer or summary. Short descriptions and ordinary research questions generally work better than lists of disconnected keywords. Quotation marks have no special meaning in Semantic mode. Cross-language matching may work in some cases, but it should not be treated as translation.

Keyword and Semantic search are complementary. Keyword search lets you require particular wording; Semantic search can surface differently worded passages about the same subject. Depending on the research question, trying both can reveal different useful material.

Open a result: use the prominent page-and-transcription link to see the metadata, PDF, and full transcription. Keyword-search terms are highlighted in the transcription.

Archives Collections Database (ArchivesSpace): the Collection, Item/Folder, and Digital Object links open the corresponding archival records. Collection-level dates describe the collection as a whole, not necessarily the specific item or page.

If a PDF does not load: on the detail page, use the Digital Object link, click “Go to file” in ArchivesSpace, and navigate to the page number shown here.

Current limitations
  • Automated transcriptions can contain missing or incorrect text or unintended repetition. Difficult handwriting, image quality, unusual layouts, and multiple languages can reduce accuracy. Always consult the original page image when an exact reading matters.
  • Semantic search remains experimental. Its rankings are an additional discovery aid, not a complete or definitive set of relevant results, and highly ranked pages can sometimes be only broadly related.
  • This is an active prototype. Search coverage, transcriptions, functionality, and the interface may continue to change as additional archival material is processed and the system is improved.

← Back to results

Page 4 · DO #32 · 204_Popenoe_Bx3FF30r

Collection
Wilson Popenoe (1892–1975) family papers
Item/Folder
Bianchi, Alberto E., 16 June 1964–10 June 1967
Digital Object
DO #32, page 4
Collection-level dates
1882–1975
Open PDF at page 4 ↗

Page transcription

ALBERTO E. BIANCHI
7a Calle 2-58, Zona 1,
GUATEMALA.

Guatemala, June 10, 1967

Dear Dr. Popencoe:

Thank you for your letter of June Ist. in which you say that you hope to be able to visit our farm "Las Vertientes" in San José Pinula on your return from Boston. I very much look forward to your visit and I hope that it could be with Arturo Falla since we have parallel interests and I feel that getting the three of us together, we can accomplish a great deal. I am sending a copy of this letter to Arturo so that he will know about this.

This is intended to be a sort of agenda of what I would like to discuss with you and Arturo on our meeting. First I want to express my plans as to what I want to ultimately aim at:

a) Peaches: I feel that the climate and soils of San José Pinula are well adapted to this crop. Furthermore, the market for good, firm peaches is almost unlimited if we consider the demand from the canneries for nectars, canned peaches and for fresh markets both in Guatemala as well as the rest of Central America.

What has been done so far: I imported 33 varieties of peaches from California to select from these the ones that will better adapt to our climate. So far a few have shown good promise; however I am worried over the fact that many of the varieties are still dormant at this writing. They dropped their leaves completely from February to April and although the branches are green, alive and full of buds, many of them have not produced leaves yet. It is true that we have had cold, cludy weather with hail and north winds until recently that it began to rain.

The soil is good; it has been kept free of weeds and cultivated between the rows; we applied 4 oz. of 14-14-14 to each tree in a large circle around the base and irrigated throughout the dry season.

Among my introductions there are Elberta and Fay Elberta which are two of the favorite varieties for canning peach-halves in California. These two have but a few leaves at the tips of the branches now.

I have obtained grafting material from San Lucas, San Bartolo, Chimaltenango and Quezaltenango of the melocotones considered there as the best yellow, hard either red-pit or yellow pit types. These have been grafted on ordinary white native peach roots and they seem to be doing well. I also took scion material from some of the introductions, grafted on seedling white peaches and they also took well.

At this stage I ran out of peach seedlings large enough to continue grafting. However I am again grafting scions of the introductions on a new crop of seedling peaches planted to field position in November of last year and recently. Just as soon as the peach seedlings are large enough, I graft them using both the scions and the buds for this purpose.

I also brought in from Mexico peach seeds of a melocoton reputed there as producing true to parent and producing a large, firm, hard peach, suitable for canning. These trees are already in field position and some 18" high, growing fast.