Welcome and use my name and welcome.

That which chiefly limits success in our profession is the fact that so few know that landscape architecture is a matter in which professional service is very desirable and payment for it is profitable. Many millions of dollars are misspent every year for want of good professional advice. It was nearly the same with architecture forty years ago. Forty years ago I employed an architect who had his office in the Merchants Exchange in New York to make me a design for a farm house. He charged me $5—for it. He was the only architect I then had knowledge of. Where there was one then, poorly paid, there are now a hundred much better paid. Why? Because people have learned through seeing the results of employing architects that it is profitable to employ them. So it will be with Landscape Architecture as Landscape Architecture comes to be recognized as a standard profession. The more work every good landscape architect is able to do, the more every other will have to do and the better he will be paid. The profession is a common wealth. I prefer that we should call ourselves L. Architects, following the French & Italian custom, rather than l. gardeners following the English, (though Loudon uses “Garden Architect”) because the former title better carries the professional idea. It makes more important also, the idea of design. “Gardener” includes service corresponding to that of carpenter and mason. Architect does not. Hence it is more discriminating, and prepares the minds of clients for dealing with on professional principles.

For a similar reason I think it best that we should never charge by the day [347]or hour as most who call themselves landscape gardeners do. We should follow the custom of lawyers in good standing and charge measurably with reference to the importance of the trust undertaken. I believe that Cleveland, Weidenmann & others have followed generally the plan of charging first adopted by O. & V. twenty years ago, shown in the memorandum enclosed. I have never varied from it, except in reducing the preliminary charge for small places nearby to $50— and abandoning the acre rate for very small places. Our custom now is to keep an eye on these for two or three years & charge for the whole, (collecting a due proportion each January), from $200 to $400—This applies to such places as Storrow’s for instance. Only twice in twenty years have I received suggestions of abatement of charges & the exceptions were not significant, one being technical in which case I at once yielded the point, giving the benefit of doubt to the client. The other narrow mindedness, in which I insisted and carried my point. I have twice had to bring suit against city governments, & in one case had to appeal & appeal & finally been successful.

I know that you will feel more than most men what you are to your profession—that is to “the cause.” I mean beyond the zealous pursuit of it. In one way I wish to give you my opinion, derived from reading your letters, chiefly, that you are able to serve it better than any living English writing man. If you consider who and what they are who now write for the public on—or rather around—the subject, you will not think it flattering, if I say that you can easily give the public what the public most needs much better than any other man now writing. Perhaps the best, certainly the most honored & successful writers we now have are the two Parsons’s, father & son; I say so simply because they are in good company in the Century, for instance, & yet, how far they are from the root of the matter.

Everything that you have written of what you saw of scenery and gardening in Europe has been delightful to me. I can’t say how refreshing by comparison with anything that even comes in the magazines, for instance. Really the subject is a very important one nationally. And is growing so rapidly. All the new fine houses in the Western cities are villas—there is a wonderful new crop of villas growing on the line of the Long Isd R.R. and good places for them have advanced several hundred prct in value, in five years. The fashion in suburban living is just setting in. (And such paltry work is done for it.)

I have seen no such justly critical notes as yours in Landscape Architectural matters from any traveler for a generation past.

You ought to make it a part of your scheme to write for the public, a little at a time, if you please, but methodically, systematically. It is a part of your professional duty to do so.

I ought to have excepted Stiles, but I suppose that I did not feel that regular hack newspaper work should count. Stiles does well but he has not half your advantages.

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One thing more as to writing. Remember, that, duty, that I have talked of, aside, it will pay you, directly & indirectly. You write easily fluently, and in a critical way that is in demand. What you wrote off hand about the Italian Gardens—about the Baltic parks, (in this last letter), and on various other matters you saw, would make a capital series of magazine articles, with a very little modification to the scale of a popular audience. I am sure that, greedy reader as I am, I have had nothing as good. And, perhaps a book. Anything of that sort (to speak of the indirect profits) will be worth much more to you than advertising in the Nation, for example.

As soon as you can find it convenient we shall hope for a visit from you. We shall always have a bed and want you at dinner.

Yours Truly