To the President of the Commissioners of the Central Park;
Sir,

I beg leave to recommend myself for the Office of Superintendent of the Central Park.

For the past sixteen years my chief interest and occupation has been with those subjects, familiarity with which is most needed in this office. Economy in the application of agricultural labor has especially engaged my attention, and my observations on this subject have been extensively published and discussed in this country and reprinted in Europe. For ten years I have practically engaged in the direction and superintendence of agricultural laborers and gardeners in the vicinity of New York.

I have visited and examined as a student most of the large parks of Europe—British, French, Italian and German; and while thus engaged have given special attention to police details and the employment of labor in them.

Evidence of this is afforded by my published works, to which I have the honor to add the accompanying testimony.

I am going to offer myself for the office of Superintendent of the Central Park. You know that I have had a good deal of experience in working land and in the management of New York laborers, that I have planted several thousand trees (and I have been particularly successful with them), also that I have long had great interest in public parks and have observed them closely (not as a botanist or gardener, but as landscapes and pictures & in their popular educative character). I suppose that I am much more trustworthy for the duties, which include police regulations, but are independent of the landscape gardener, engineer etc., than anyone who is likely to apply or be considered.

Could you do me the favor to address a note, expressing a favorable opinion of my qualifications to the President of the Commissioners of the Central Park, and send to me as soon as you can make convenient—321 Broadway, New York?

I hope you did not lose much by Putnam’s failure; by that of Miller & Curtis, I lose everything.

My best regards to Mrs. Gray.