Dear Sir; I have a recent brief note from you, without date, asking what plants will be needed from you this spring to replace such as have died, {of} earlier plantings at Beacon Entrance, Back Bay, and another, also without date, but received last Friday from Washington asking me {…} you can make an arrangement for taking care of the plantation during the coming summer.

I wish that you would try to realize the situation, or rather I wish that you would try to put yourself in my place and think how it appears to me.

When in 1883 the Commissioners wished Beacon Entrance to be planted, my official duty, as I explained it to you at the time, was simply that of an advisor, {but it had been stipulated} that in the conduct of the work professional service should be engaged satisfactory to me.

The situation and its purposes I had in view were such that I did not think that an ordinary extemporized gardening organization would be satisfactory. I was looking for someone especially expert in making plantations of such super hardy low native shrubbery as is not to be had in large quantities from nurseries and familiar with the difficulties of establishing it under bleak conditions, when you presented yourself and brought letters from two landscape gardeners as a landscape gardener of precisely the special qualifications required. You had just been studying the subject on the bleakest and coldest part of the New England sea coast: you had a nursery of your own and were interested, experienced and your business organized for undertaking just what was wanted. I had had no [292]experience in this part of the country. You came as an authority upon the cultivation of the hardiest shrubbery in this part of the country and your confidence in what you could do under given {conditions,} based on your personal experience, overcame my doubts based upon my experience elsewhere, of the practicability of what I thought if practicable, desirable to be accomplished.

This was first, within three years to completely cover the ground in question, to within a few feet of the water, with low foliage in such a manner as to produce an {enriching} general resemblance to certain slopes along the sea coast that are covered by dense thickets chiefly of bay berry, sweet ferns and prostrate juniper but with some variety of other low vegetation and occasional clusters of higher bushes such as barberry, beach plum, wild roses, thorns and ground plants. Second, it was to so manage as to completely clothe the space likely to be influenced unfavorable to ordinary vegetation by salt water, with a large variety of plants to be specially sought for along the sea shore, that would flourish in the situation. The plans were devised, the list of plants made, the preparation of the site directed, the specifications of the arrangement drawn, in consultation with you, with the understanding that the Commission wished to spare nothing that would favor your success and to give you all possible discretion as to details by which you would be able to proceed in such a manner as in your own judgment would best enable you to accomplish the few simple ends in view such as have been stated. You were asked repeatedly, “Are you satisfied with this?” “Can you suggest any way in which the business can be put on a better footing for you?” and you have never made a request or offered a suggestion, or asked a modification of the terms of the contract in any detail that would not be an abandonment of the main comprehensive object in view, that you have not been accommodated. You could not have been used {more} liberally, and more, could not have {been entrusted to your professional discretion, self-satisfaction and honor} without dereliction of public duty. I have repeatedly pointed out to you that this was the footing on which I was dealing with you and you have always assented and accepted the obligations it implied.

I stated my own apprehensions fully to you and both in writing and verbally repeatedly warned you of the difficulties that your undertaking seemed to me to involve and my fears that you did not realize them or give them sufficient study.

Last spring I hesitated long as to certifying that the work had been done to my satisfaction and did so finally only after you had planted many thousand additional shrubs of more promising character and better planted than those set before. In June I found great numbers of plants in dying condition. The Commissioners saw the {shriveling} leaves in hundreds and the {nearly} dead stumps of many more. In July the condition of the plantation was still worse; I met your foreman on the ground and pointed out to him that not only nearly everything planted in the spring seemed to have failed but that nearly all the class of {shrubs} before planted that I was particularly interested in and with reference [293]to which especially the engagement had been made with you, looked poorly, while thousands appeared to be dead or dying. He agreed with me; said that it was unaccountable; it looked as if the ground was being swept by a pestilence and everything was going to die. I asked him to report the state of the plantation to you and he said that he should do so. He showed such extreme disappointment and mortification that when I heard of his suicide I suspected it to be due to the depression thus caused. I expected an immediate visit from you but you kept away and when, late in the fall, I at last saw you, I could not think you realized how great your failure had been. I told you so and though you said you had looked carefully over the ground and found a great deal of small stuff alive I was confirmed in my views by the terms upon which at last you proposed that your contract should be extended.

I then made a closer examination of the plantation and afterwards had Mr Fischer with two men employed for a week in counting the plants one by one. The result satisfied me that the case was much worse than I had previously supposed. I did not tell you of the count as the winter had already set in, I did not think you would believe it accurate and I hoped that you would look more closely into the matter for yourself. I have a list of the numbers found by Mr Fischer to be alive last fall of every sort of plant on the ground.

I concluded as spring approached that you were unlikely to either count for yourself or to accept my count, therefore I obtained your consent to employ Mr Dawson to go over the ground with your foreman and estimate what number of plants of {all sorts} there are now alive and in what proportion the dead stumps {not removed} in last summer’s cultivation of the ground, are to the yet living plants.

He reports to me today that in his judgment there are in the vicinity of 35,000 living plants of all kinds, a large part of which are not woody plants but such as were to be supplied at the {lowest} price and are commonly ranked with weeds. This is a considerably larger number than Mr Fischer found by actual count last fall. I believe that it is an overestimate. You have been paid upon a basis of more than 100,000 plants.

Examining the plants on the ground left after the {cultivating} of last year, to determine the proportion of living to dead, Mr Dawson found as follows—

Cassandra, Myrica, {Comptonia} (on the higher ground) 50 prct dead.

Shore plantations of Beach plum, Hippophae, {Rosa Lucida} and Tamarisk——————all dead;

On higher ground 75 to 95 prct dead.

The shore is bare of vegetation except a narrow strip of sedge here and there.

[294]

View of Beacon Street Entrance to the Back Bay Fens, Looking Toward Boylston Bridge, n.d.

Of Bearberry, Linnaea, Kalmia, Sea lavender, Beach pea, Asparagus, Euonymus {radicans} and others each of which your bills show that from 500 to 2000 have been planted, Mr Dawson saw, after searching several hours, hardly a score of anyone living, of most not a single specimen. Others largely planted in various parts he found only in one or two specially sheltered and moist localities.

The thriving plants are first the nursery grown, common commercial ornamental shrubs, mostly furnished by the Department, with some others not originally called for and not desired to remain, and Tansy, Asters and Solidagos, planted for temporary effect, which are rampant and spreading and which another summer will smother and kill nearly all that are left of the plants designed to permanently predominate as, Myricas, Comptonias, &c.

This mere loss of so many plants is the smallest part of the disaster. The whole design is a wreck. Of what remains of your planting that which should be most prominent and characteristic is least so, that which was desired to be an inconspicuous element merging in a mass of a certain quality, stands out exclusively; that which was to be subordinate, predominates. The ground and the rocks most strenuously to be covered are bare and the whole affair is recognized by the Commissioners to be exceedingly discreditable to all concerned.

I don’t see how the plantation can be left longer under your management. I don’t think that you should depend on me to think out your present duty in the premises. It is a question of professional obligation and character. But pray [295]let me hear soon what, in view of the statement I have now made, you do think and intend about it. We must come speedily to some conclusion.

Yours Truly,