I am laid up again at the same brick farm house in which I lay sick for a week last year, and with the same colored brother to tend me. I came here the night after Rick left. When I got up the next morning my head was swimming and I could not cross the room without catching at tables and chairs [394]as if on ship-board. After breakfast I lay down and sent word to Thompson that I could not meet him as I had engaged to do. In the afternoon I thought that I was a little better and that going out would help me. I rode up to the Esplanade, my head still swimming; saw Thompson there and studied the maps with him. Reeled back. Today it has turned cold and dark and I suppose a three days storm is impending. I am no better. I can eat nothing; the attempt makes me sea-sick. I suppose it is a disorder of the stomach resulting from the cold taken in going to Marquette and which has left my head. I have taken three of the little pills purgative of Dr Francis’s prescription with little effect. My head swims as I write.

The confinement is very irksome. There are so many perplexities here and so much I want to see. Additional land has been acquired which I have not seen and which must compel variations of the original scheme of laying out. In fact the whole theory is changing rapidly.

I spoke of perplexities. It is evident that Mr. V. under suggestions of Burnett, D’Aligne and McNamee, and in pursuit of impulses of his own has been breaking far away from his original policy. He has not realized that in doing so, he has left us out of his counsels and in instructions given us, given Thompson and Gall has taken for granted that we understood plans gradually getting fixed in his mind of which we are ignorant.

The farm operations have been much extended since the last understanding I had of them. Passages that I had intended to take for roads have been blocked. Great hillsides that I had proposed, Mr. V. consenting, to plant as a part of the forest have been plowed and sown. Other such areas are in preparation. The Baron has turned cattle & horses to pasture on some of Douglas’s plantations. When remonstrated with he answered that he did not think they would eat the pines but I suspect the real reason was that he regarded the planting as a farce or failure. Gall reports that half the trees at the last plantings are dead and the remaining seedlings are lost to sight among weeds. The cattle were driven out after a report to Mr McNamee but are in again this morning, Gall says. There is no manure for us. That of the stable near Ram Branch that was last Spring engaged for the Approach Road has all been appropriated and used in the Market Garden, for which, of course, there can never be a sufficient supply. The Market Garden and the Dairy are returning, day by day, good receipts, which pleases McNamee. So are the Brick works. The Forest, the Esplanade and the Approach, nothing.

All our affairs are giving way to agriculture. The quality of our work is good. Gall seems to have learned. But I am everywhere disappointed with the amount. Nothing has been done on the Garden or South of the Esplanade—nothing. The Esplanade is not yet graded down. A large addition has just {been} made to the force to push the work before Mr. V. arrives, and Thompson says that with a continuance of good weather he will have the whole Esplanade flat within a fortnight, but it looks to me improbable. All the excavation at the East end is in solid rock.

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We have ground ready, except manure, and we have stock ready, for planting, about 2 ½ times as much ground as we planted last winter. We shall have more before winter. All the neighborhood of the Approach south of Shiloh is included, and all (except about the two bridges) east of the First Pools. Beadle says he needs manure for the Nursery and cannot get it. He also says that unless we are to plant extensively this Fall, he must have a large annexation from the Farming land and more manure, and must take up and replant more openly a large body of our present nursery stock. In fact unless Mr. V. is willing to have a much larger force placed at our disposal for the preparation of planting ground we shall have on our hands by the end of next year a large stock of over-grown trees.

The Aquatics, I think have all arrived. It appears to me that a mistake—my mistake probably—has been made in the order for Nelumbians and common Nymphias. There is more than double the amount needed.

The Rhododendrons are generally yellow but I guess will be right next year. There has been a great growth of Asters & Golden rods and other weedy plants and the aspect of the place is too disorderly and unkempt. I have directed much to be pulled out. The special operations I intended are under way.

While writing your telegram of today is telephoned to me. I understand you to advise me to stay for Mr. V. He is now due, with Pinchot, and, perhaps, Burnett, on the 9th P.M. Probably I shall have to stay till the 11th. This writing has made my head swimming worse. I can do nothing but rest. You may find Rick’s impressions of Biltmore of some interest. He seemed to me to be taking it in fairly in a glancing way. I am painfully conscious that there is much wanting of me at the North.