If I had undertaken to give you professional opinions upon any of the questions which were approached in our conversation this afternoon I should do so only after much more careful study of the circumstances and after more deliberation than I can give them now, but I will trust that you will allow me to offer you some off-hand observations showing how I am inclined to {think} I should advise you if, after such study and deliberation, I found my present impressions confirmed.

[428]

There are local circumstances on your side of the river that from the {same} general principles might lead to a very different practice in some respects from that which Mr Vaux and I advised to be adopted by the New York Commission.

In the New York plan no refreshments are to be allowed to be sold to visitors on the Government property and none to be brought by visitors to be eaten upon it, except within an area of less than four acres which was bought especially with regard to the requirements in this respect of “excursionists,” at a point which other visitors need have no occasion to occupy, and would not need to cross in order to enjoy all that is distinctive of Niagara scenery. In this area, called the Upper Grove, permanent shelters and other conveniences are to be provided making it a gathering place for excursion visitors but nothing like what is ordinarily called a pic-nic ground is intended, the reason being that the space is too contracted to be so used.

Within your limits, on the other hand there are two bodies of land, together nearly ten times as large as the Upper Grove on the New York side, equally removed with that from the river bank and out of the popular lines of transit. One of these is admirably adapted to the use of pic-nic parties, being nearly level, well carpeted with turf and a considerable part of it shaded by beautiful well grown and umbrageous trees scattered and grouped in a park-like manner. The other I am not as familiar with and could not examine closely today but I judge that it can be made equally suitable to the purpose at no great outlay. Both these areas could be used by large excursion parties and would accommodate several at a time without interfering with the movements of other visitors seeking to view the Falls and Rapids, or at all marring their enjoyment of the views. If desirable they might be in distinct enclosures.

There is, then, this further circumstance to be taken into account. Nearly all visitors to your ground will enter it, not as they enter the New York Reservation on its road side and with the necessity of crossing it in numerous streams, but at one end and on one line of march.

To pass from this end of your property to the other and return on foot by any route likely to be followed by those seeking to enjoy the river, will require a walk of not less than five miles, and with a moderate allowance of time to be spent on the way for the enjoyment of the scenery, visitors moving in a party with women and children will be likely to be three hours or more on the ground and much of this time at a distance of more than two miles from any existing place of refreshment outside the Grounds.

Under these circumstances it should be well considered whether it is not best to establish two pic-nic {grounds}, one some distance above and one some distance below Table Rock, both as far back from the bank as practicable and secluded somewhat from the view of people passing along the bank. A shelter might be built in the back part of each of these grounds large enough in case of a shower to protect several hundred people. In these shelters rooms might also be provided in which rest and restoratives could be offered to any taken ill, and [429]light refreshments to be sold for all needing them. The chief difficulty of such an arrangement would be that of resisting the tendency to enlarge it and make all the money out of it practicable. If it is adopted every cost should be taken to fix a limited scope to the refreshment part of the scheme and to prevent its coming unnecessarily into competition with proper commercial undertakings.

Whether the areas which have been referred as suitable for pic-nic grounds are to be used as such or not, it is, as I think, most desirable that they should be preserved in the character of park-like spaces; that is to say, glades of greensward broken only by a few scattered trees or groups of trees and measurably secluded by the other surrounding trees. No road or walk should be so laid out as to split them or in skirting them to unnecessarily encroach upon them.

Partly for this reason but partly also for others, I am disposed to question the policy of setting a carriage road so far from the bank as you are proposing to do. The route you have staked out would be suitable if the object were simply to provide for the conveyance of visitors from the Suspension Bridge to Table Rock and the Islands above the Falls and by taking it you would be relieved of some temporary complications. But there is this important objection to doing so.

The greater number of the visitors who are to come in carriages from the New York side, from whose fees you are looking for an important part of your revenue, will be moved to come, not in order to get a different near view of the Falls or the Rapids from that to be obtained on the New York side nor to visit the Islands but, to get a comprehensive front view of the Falls which is not to be had on the New York side nor from any place except the brink of the Chasm for a distance of half a mile from the lower end of your property. The road you have staked out passes so far from the brink (about {880} feet) that visitors wishing to get the view of which I speak would be compelled to leave their carriages for it.

In nearly every carriage load of visitors there would be some who could not and others who would not willingly walk the half mile along the brink for this purpose and the knowledge that such a walk was necessary in order to obtain good front views of the Falls would deter many from crossing the river. {Now} as a matter of finance, in your case, it would be better to adopt an arrangement similar in principle to that adopted from other considerations by the New York Commission. This would lead two or three points to be fixed upon as the best for the enjoyment of a front view of the Falls in the furnishing there with seats perhaps with balconies and shelters, and to the providing near by of waiting places (“harbors”) in which carriages would stand while those coming in them were enjoying the view.

If viewing places for visitors and waiting places for carriages are to be provided near the edge of the crags as thus suggested it would be undesirable that the route of the road connecting them should be very {devious}. The only way to avoid making it so would be to lay {it} out by courses approximately parallel with and at no great distance from the edge of the crags.

If so laid out the further advantage would appear a broad quiet, simple [430]unbroken park-like body of land between the road and the steep wooded slope on the border of your property. This would supply an agreeable contrast to the view on the other side of the road. It would be restful and grateful.

I am inclined to think further, that a walk on the land side of the road will eventually be desirable: first as a route for visitors returning, alternative to the often crowded walk along the edge; second, as a means of access to the picnic grounds.

Suppose such a walk to have been formed it will distinctly define the territory within which pic-nic meals are to be permitted and it will be much more practicable to enforce the regulation against them elsewhere.

I will add a few suggestions as to matters of detail.

The principal improvement to be made after the few works of construction that you have in view are completed is to be accomplished by planting. This, after a year or two, can be done cheaply if done gradually in the spring and autumn when your men will be little occupied by visitors, provided you shall have previously made arrangements for having ready suitable trees, bushes and vines in good condition for planting. To this end you should soon have a nursery started with small plants to be bought in quantities at low prices. If this is well ordered it will cost little to grow them to good planting size. You can buy at from five to ten cents trees which when grown to a size for final planting would cost you a dollar each. As you intend for other reasons to employ a gardener the business will be easily attended to.

There is no inexpensive way in which you can prevent much of your land above the Falls from being too wet and boggy on the surface for the healthy growth of most trees but at small cost it can in a few years be covered with beautiful masses of willow foliage.

The unsightly high, raw and sliding bank beneath the railroad, if you cannot afford a more radical treatment, might in a few years be covered by foliage of vines and creepers to be started in beds and pockets of prepared soil made near the base and brink of the {bank}. Rooted cuttings of the wild grape vine and of Virginia creeper, which are growing profusely near by, can be prepared at trifling cost in any desirable quantity for the purpose by your gardener.

A thousand dollars spent within the next ten months for seedling nursery stock and means to such willow and vine planting as has been suggested would greatly set forward and make frugal a much to be desired improvement, one result of which would be a larger income through greater attractiveness of the road and walk on your bridges.

In making rustic railings as you propose for the bridges and paths of the Islands I should think it better to attempt not the slightest “fancy work”. Any variety of character in the railings will better grow out of a necessary adaptation in the form and arrangement of their parts to suit variations that may be found in the materials used and to special local suggestions and requirements. As a general rule that which as an engineer you would prescribe having regard simply to strength, endurance and utility, would give the best results from a high landscape [431]gardening point of view. It is only in situations where there is no special natural interest to be considered that a decorative purpose should govern in the design of such constructions.

It appears to me that where you have further occasion to paint bridges and railings, a somewhat darker tint than that you are using may make them less conspicuous. It would be well to experiment a little upon the point. Regard must be had to the fading of the paint.

Very respectfully Yours,