Dear Sir:— Since I left you, I have been meditating more or less every day upon the Ram Branch work, the prospects of which I find exceedingly fascinating. I have been looking over our letter of instructions to you about it of last February. I am not sure that I can add anything to what was then said, but think it best to write again from the present more advanced point of view.

What has been done between the quarry and the bridge shows that you have caught the spirit of our intention and have managed your force so as to realize it thus far successfully. Speaking in a general way of this matter of management, I should think that improvement was chiefly to be sought by inculcating greater reserve and more caution not to disturb natural circumstances. I have always found in all such work that it is extremely difficult to prevent foremen and men from feeling that the smoother and cleaner the result they reached at almost any stage of the work, the better it will be. The only way is to constantly reiterate instructions on this point and interrupt and prevent the cleaning up of what may be regarded as over-roughness, dirt and rubbish. Rotting roots, sticks and bits of stone should not be moved unless there is a positive reason for a change of surface. I think it would be a good plan every now and then to set a couple of stakes and say, “between these stakes nothing is to be done.” Generally, where there would be occasion for doing so, what is wanted is not the taking away of anything, but occasionally the dropping in of a stone that will be consistent in color and otherwise with the existing conditions and which will give them greater picturesqueness.

All that I have said above applies to the conditions under which you have thus far been working, and to similar conditions {higher up the} stream, but in that part of the valley lying between the two saw-mill sites, and to which the plan of road which I left on the table applies, you will have somewhat different, and in one respect more difficult, conditions to deal with. At least I apprehend that running through the middle of the swamp instead, as you have done so far generally, on one side of it, you will have to use a great deal of study to avoid making the road appear a causeway, while securing good drainage and losing nothing essential of the natural advantages for picturesque borders. It was to these conditions rather than those you have had below that what I said in my letter of last February, as to deepening the channel of the brook, applies. And yet I can but shrink from undertaking any general deepening of the brook from fear that this cannot be done without too much disturbance of its present banks, for I do not believe if you disturb these, you can generally succeed in getting new banks anywhere near as good. It will be a question to be determined by a very careful consideration of local circumstances at this [135]point whether you will obtain the necessary difference of elevation between the surface of the road and the outlets of your drains in the brook, by deepening the channel of the brook or lifting the surface of the road above the surface of the adjoining swamp. In some places you will have to adopt one course and in some the other, letting the road rise at times with a grade of 1 in 20, or perhaps a little steeper for a short distance and then carrying it for one or two hundred feet nearly on a level, the more nearly level stretches being where it would be unwise to attempt to much deepen the brook. Of course, where the surface of the road is required, in order to preserve the picturesqueness of the brook, to be above the general surface of the adjoining ground on the side opposite to the brook, you must manage to raise this adjoining surface, or have it in view to hide by planting the fact that it is at a lower level than that of the surface of the road. It may be difficult to fill out from the borders of the road as you would otherwise do without injury to the Rhododendrons which are growing there. With regard to this difficulty, consider that you can fill as deep as you need with loam to one side of the Rhododendrons provided you leave the other side uncovered. Consider also that Rhododendrons will bear a considerable burying of their roots, if the material used is loose, light vegetable stuff, peaty or mucky.

With regard to the process, you can at once begin to move all trees and shrubs that are to be felled, all through the valley, leaving, of course, the Rhododendrons and Kalmias. The probability is, unless you have much rain, that by the middle of July you will find the Rhododendrons have ceased to grow and that the new wood is beginning to harden, which will be indicated by a change of color in the bark. As soon as they have arrived at this condition, you can safely begin the transplanting of such of them as would be in the way of your grading operations, assuming that you can take them with a good deal of earth; that you do not have to carry them far and can lift and carry them without much jar, and that they are not likely to suffer from drought in the new locality.

With regard to the pond district above the bridge, upon which you are now engaged, as soon as your exploring operations admit of a more definite determination of the outlines of the water surface, I should be glad to have you send us a sketch map of this district, showing the leading features of the plan as it will then stand in your mind. I have a different idea of the design from that hitherto in view and should like to re-study it comprehensively upon such a map. The map should show the more important trees and bodies of foliage proposed to be retained. The depth of water practicable at various points, and the requirements of drainage. It need not be very accurate or more than a rough sketch, but the conditions are so complicated that I should like to study out the whole as one, and give it deliberate consideration.

One thing more I must say. I do hope that you will be able to find somewhere better stone to be used in the brook and along its borders and in archways, retaining walls and other constructions than any I saw. I do not mean to say that such as you had in view might not answer tolerably, but at the best, they would be only tolerable, not excellent. And where everything else is likely [136]

[137]to be in the highest degree excellent, I feel that it would be worth while going to a good deal of trouble and expense to obtain more admirable stone. I shall write you again before long about a more systematic prosecution of the purpose of a botanical museum, etc. As soon as everything has been well settled in the nursery and the plants have been once well cultivated, I think that what is to be done there may be safely left much of the time under the direction of the foreman and that Mr. Beadle may be set systematically to work exploring, making collections and seeking for trees to be removed another season, in all the adjoining country. When so engaged, he can also be on the lookout for fine stones and picturesque points of ledges that can be removed to Ram Branch. Stones of from 12 to 20 cubic feet are what will be chiefly desirable. These could generally be moved on a stone boat or a cart without being much scraped or damaged, and with a single pair of strong mules. I should think that the best chance for finding them would be in some of the eastern tributaries of the Swananoah. I have an impression that I noticed some along the edge of the brook near Busby when I went with Mr. Thompson to examine the sources of the water supply. I should not think this would be going too far to obtain from a score to a hundred of such stones.

I met Col. Waring in passing through New York, and he desired me to give you his regards. He was just starting on a professional tour in the South and was intending to go to Mobile and several other points. He expressed a great deal of interest in the Biltmore enterprise. You know he is an old friend of Mr. Hunt. I should not be surprised if he gives you a call on his return.

Yours truly