I wish to remind you of the facts in regard to the planting at the Cairn and on the Memorial Ground. A few coarse and common trees and bushes planted with the intention of cutting out, have grown rankly on the Cairn, and the Kalmia and Andromeda have done tolerably. But of the more important plants that we intended to leave, and upon which the success of our design wholly depended, after numerous re-plantings, in no small part at our expense for the plants, not more than two per cent of all are now alive, and those living have not made one quarter the growth of plants which we have planted elsewhere out of the same lots. I cannot conjecture, after repeated examinations, any reason for this failure, except want of fertility in the soil and want of suitable care and attention. Even if we suppose that a great many of the plants have been stolen, which is possible, this would not account for the comparatively poor growth of those which remain. I said that we had lost some of ours by mice, and suggested that that might be your trouble, but of all that we have planted, very few have been taken by the mice, and we have seen no evidence that yours have been troubled in that way at all. I cannot tell you how mortified I feel at this failure. The work has cost you some thousand dollars and every cent of it is a great deal worse than thrown away, as the matter stands. In all my professional experience of forty years, I have met with no failure like it. I cannot see that I am to blame for it. In horticultural matters, we have lucky and unlucky years, but a continuance of bad luck for several successive years cannot reasonably be supposed. Moreover, at various other points about Boston, we have had perfect success with all these plants, and even at North Easton, Japanese Ivy, planted at the Library, has grown well, while not one per cent of those planted on the Cairn are alive. Is not the inference irresistible that the failure at the Cairn is due to some misusage?

I have sent you two hundred additional plants of the Euonymus (making four hundred all together this Spring) taken from my own stock, and for which no charge is made. These should be planted along the base of the main wall. I have also ordered some more of the Japanese Ivy and some of the Japanese Honeysuckle to be sent you. The Ivy is to be planted, also, along the base of the main wall; the Honeysuckle inside the low wall along the road, which should be completely covered by it this year.

I repeat that we have had perfect success with each and all of these plants in situations as nearly as possible corresponding with those at North Easton. On Franklin Park, we have planted them in the same way in a soil largely composed of peat, where they have all grown more in one year than [116]at North Easton in five. I have them also growing by the hundred on my own place, some in peat, and some without. Everywhere the soil has been made fairly good with well rotted stable dung, but no extraordinary care has been taken; no more, I am confident, than you generally take of the plants about your house. But if I were in immediate direction at North Easton, as I am on the Park and at my own place, I should give a great deal more attention to the plants on the Cairn, under these remarkable circumstances, than I should to the plants about my house, because unless these plants on the Cairn can be made to thrive, several thousand dollars, as I have said, will have been much worse than thrown away there.

I send you as many plants as I do, because out of those that have been planted in previous years, some few have survived and if we plant enough, we can hope that in time some will pull through. If you think it wise to go further upon this principle, I shall be glad to send you more plants.

You will notice that one kind of little fern (Polypodium) has grown well. It would cost but very little to increase the number of this, collecting them in the neighborhood, as you have done, and every crevice between the rocks that is not already occupied with some plant should be filled with them, or with Sedum-acre, the latter in places too small to get in the ferns. It is a part of the singular misfortune of this whole undertaking of the Cairn that, for several successive years, Mr. Frederick Ames instructed his gardener to propagate and supply Sedum-acre in large quantities for the Cairn, and his gardener repeatedly promised me personally that he would do so and provide a competent man for planting it, and as often failed. And when, at last, arrangements were completed and the planting of Sedum secured, instead of Sedum-acre which was promised, and which I know had been ready at the time, another Sedum was used which I did not want and had requested should not be planted at all. I presume that a large quantity of Sedum-acre could now be spared from Mr. Frederick Ames’s place; if not, and you wish it, I can obtain it for you, but this is of minor importance. The ferns more. But the main thing is to make the Euonymus survive and flourish for the main wall, and Honeysuckle for the low wall. If you think that the Euonymus suffers from the shade of any of the bushes that are growing high enough to make this possible, I advise you to take out the bushes. But, in my place, the Euonymus has been growing fairly well in very dark shade and completely over-hung by tall bushes.

I was sorry not to be able to go at the call of your son this week, but our business is now so much at a distance that for three weeks at least of the planting season we are engaged far ahead. Both my partners and Mr. Manning are away, and I have been at home but one day during the last week. I go to Providence to-day; to New York to-morrow. Nothing can be simpler or easier than to determine the grade of the proposed approach road to your son’s house. Except within about a rod of the junction with the existing road and of the doorstep, it should be a perfect plane; a slightly inclined plane, and the borders should be connected with the natural surface [117]

by long ogee curves, with an average inclination of about one foot, fall or rise, in a distance of six to ten feet horizontal, or, at points where necessary to avoid filling about a tree, a little steeper for a few feet.

Yours faithfully,

I have not been called to Rochester and I am under engagement to start upon my Southern trip Monday. I shall probably be absent two or three weeks to inspect works and examine ground at various points. Before I return, you will probably receive some plans and estimates for your proposed conservatory, palm house and rose house.

Herewith will be sent you a preliminary skeleton plan, embodying a general theory of design for your grounds, and which will be submitted for the purpose of obtaining more definite instructions than we now have as to what you would think desirable. We have allowed, for example, a certain space for the new stable, stable court, manure yard; for the gardener’s house, propagating and grape houses and a vegetable garden. You will please advise us what you wish different from what is suggested in these respects, and it would be well if you would have your architects give us an outline plan of the stable. We suppose that, both as to the stable and working glass houses, we have allowed a little more room than is necessary. It will be easily cut down.

As to the rest of the ground, we have thought it possible that you might [120]

[121]like to do something which cannot be very well expressed graphically in such a sketch as that now sent. This would be to throw up in the north-west part of your ground a ridge in the general form of a horse-shoe, as indicated by the contour lines on the map. Within this ridge there would be a depression of fine turf. The steeper parts of the ridge would be planted with a continuous thicket of shrubbery, backed at some distance with trees, forming in this way a sheltered amphitheatre. There would be capes and bays of shrubbery, with here and there some shrubs detached from the mass, and everywhere along the edge of these capes, bays and islands would be flowering plants, mainly perennial, but with a good many spring bulbs growing in the outer part of the turf. This would be an unusual and, we think, very agreeable form of garden. It would be easily taken care of. Sheltered from the North, and carefully prepared for the purpose, it would be more genial than most gardens in Buffalo, during the Spring and early Summer. It would contrast agreeably with the broad, flat, open ground immediately on the west of your house. It would afford a degree of seclusion which, by contrast in this respect, would, we think, add a good deal to the pleasantness of the place. There would be no difficulty as to drainage, and the whole operation would be really a simple one, but the preliminary grading would be heavy and costly. We have provided in this drawing for a much larger affair than would be necessary. We should guess that the grading for this, including the re-soiling of the ground and other preparation for planting and seeding could be done, if desired, by contract at a cost of perhaps eight hundred dollars ($800). The same idea could be carried out on a smaller scale at a cost of five hundred dollars ($500). Neither estimate includes planting.

Please advise us if you would be disposed to undertake anything of the kind.

Yours Truly,