I am in the dentist’s hands, and otherwise not qualified to start on a long journey, so I may be obliged to be two or three days later in reaching Biltmore than I advised you I should in my last letter. I planned, when I was last with you, to make my next visit in September, and supposed that the scheme of work which I then advised would considerably more than occupy the force until after the first of October.

I am very much surprised that any work should have been done with reference to the Arboretum Road, as I thought that it must have been apparent to you and to Mr. Thompson that the special surveys and trail which I asked that Mr. Thompson might make this Summer were required only in order that, before any work should be begun, I might apply further and more intelligent [691]study to the problem than I had found practicable without the advantages for study to be thus gained.

You will remember that in June I went over the ground with Mr. Thompson. While doing so, and afterwards, I explained to him very fully the impossibility of coming to judicious conclusions on many points, from beginning to end of the route, until we could do so with the advantages which I asked him and you to see would be prepared before September.

I am confident, also, that I had verbally explained to Mr. Vanderbilt the situation in this respect: I mean the impracticability of fixing upon the course and grades of the Arboretum Road before some additional surveys and facilities should be provided for the study of the general plan of the Arboretum. I can hardly think that Mr. Vanderbilt did not understand this, and I suspect that it will be found that Mr. Gall has been proceeding upon a misunderstanding of instructions from Mr. Vanderbilt as to the immediate construction of the road, or else that Mr. Vanderbilt has misunderstood something that Mr. Gall said to him on the subject. Bear in mind that the scheme of the Arboretum has never yet been in the slightest degree considered otherwise than tentatively. We have never drawn the first line of even a preliminary plan for it, and have never had a stake set for it or a grade calculated. The stakes which had been set were set solely with a view to a further preliminary reconnaissance. I think that in many cases they are not within a quarter of a mile of the route that, after more careful study, we should select.

I have supposed that every one on the Estate perfectly well knew this, as I have talked about it a good deal in various companies.

I enclose a copy of a letter written to you after returning from my last visit to Biltmore. You will see that it fully bears out the view expressed in my recent letters to you, and which I have again more fully expressed above. My intentions and expectations could hardly be more explicitly defined than they were by this letter. However, what is done is done, and we must make the best of it.

There is a sentence in one of Mr. Gall’s routine reports that indicates that he has been bringing stone to the garden terrace with a view to the foundation of fountains there. My son says that when this report reached the office he called my attention to it, but, if so, I misunderstood him and failed to take such action as I should had I realized the fact. I trust that Mr. Gall did not mean what it now looks as if he did. No design of the garden terrace has been adopted. The only surface part of the ground that I have supposed would be prepared this year is the planting strip at the base of the wall of the Esplanade, the preparation of which was provided for in my written instructions, and perhaps some ploughing and manuring of the rest. There can be at Biltmore no drawing applicable to the laying out of this terrace, except one which has been discarded. The last plan considered in council with Mr. Vanderbilt and Mr. Hunt is now here. It differs materially from that previously suggested. I brought home with me this last drawing, because, notwithstanding Mr. Vanderbilt’s [692]

acceptance of it, I was myself dissatisfied with it. I have spent a full week this Summer in trying to devise a different plan which would not be unsatisfactory to me, but have not yet succeeded to my satisfaction. I have intended to bring the matter up for fresh discussion when I should again meet Mr. Vanderbilt on the ground. If there is any work going on upon this terrace, except such as I specifically directed, keeping in view the practicability of an entirely different plan from the discarded one left at Biltmore, it should be stopped.

Yours Truly

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