Yours of the 28th reached me yesterday, and I herewith enclose the drawing asked for.

I must apologize for having overlooked or forgotten the words in the resolution of the trustees (a copy of which you enclose,) “facing south.”

I did not think it practicable to place the building designed by Mr. Richards upon the site named, facing south, and connect it conveniently and tastefully with the public road, without an extravagant sacrifice of other desirable arrangements. I had learned from Mr. Richards that he agreed with me, and that his design was prepared with reference to a position several hundred feet further north than the point designated in the resolution of the Board, where it would be supported by the woods and where it could be approached by a moderate deviation from a central road through the property, but having had no instructions to provide for a building in that position, I said nothing about it in my report.

You will observe that (at the close of my report,) I did indicate in what way I should advise the building to stand and to be approached, if it should be placed on the ground designated by the resolutions of the trustees, though, unquestionably, if it had been placed there, my first advice would have been to take it down.

If I had understood that it was a sine qua non of a plan that a tall building should be placed near the chestnut tree, facing south, and that it was to be approached from a point on the public road still farther south, it appears so simple a matter to layout a road to it that it would hardly have occurred to me that your Committee desired me to visit the ground merely for that purpose.

I fear you will find, however, that when this approach has been staked out, your trouble will have only begun, the difficulty being to make a judicious use of the rest of the property with such an arrangement. At least I have been able to satisfy myself with no plan for that purpose.

The letter of which you request me to send you a copy, has, I regret [93] to say, been missing since the day of its receipt. My impression is that it merely requested me to visit Amherst where I should receive instructions. The resolution of your Board and the one of the Building Committee on which you acted in writing me, was read to me by the Committee, but I was also verbally requested to present my views upon the whole matter of a plan. On receiving this request I observed that it would oblige me to stay over a day longer than I had intended, for the purpose of studying the whole ground more completely. I gave up another engagement to enable me to do so, and one of the Committee relieved me of the conveyance in which I should otherwise have returned to Northampton the same night.

I mention these circumstances because you seem to fear that in reviewing a question upon which the Board had come to a decision, I may have given occasion for displeasure to those with whose views I have had the misfortune to be obliged to differ.

The individuality of an agricultural college lies in its agriculture, not in its building, which is a mere piece of apparel to be fitted to the requirements of the agricultural trunk. The building and the building site therefore must be the corollary of a plan, and it would be more than a mistake, in my judgment, to make it the ruling circumstance. I could not therefore do justice to the question of a general plan without regarding the question of a building plan as a subordinate one.