Looking back at this distance from Chicago, I am inclined to offer you a few scattered observations, unofficially and unprofessionally, as one after another they come to me in review of what we learned while with you of the progress of preparations for the World’s Fair.

You know that just before we left we were offered the position of [195]Landscape Architects to your Board. Thinking it over, we see that to undertake the duties of that office, we should be obliged to decline a good deal of business that will be offered us, and should find it difficult to do justice to all our existing important engagements. Our situation is such, that we could not think of doing this without feeling assured that we were to have opportunities, means and facilities for securing a result that, compared with those secured at previous World’s Fairs by our English, French and German professional brethren, would be creditable to the country and would sustain the reputation we have earned.

The best of the sites you have in view is a wretchedly poor one compared with any site heretofore taken for a great Exposition. To secure a fairly respectable result under the conditions of topography soil and climate of any one of them, within the period of time to which we shall be limited will require much ingenuity in design, most sagacious and industrious management, liberal outlay, and after all perhaps some favor of luck. With reference to a desirable result to be economically obtained, the North Lake Site would be a far better site than either of the others; the West Side much the worst. A good thing could be done at Jackson Park if but a part, and not too large a part were to be accommodated there.

Looking over your by-laws (which we had not seen until today), we notice (Article 15), that you appear to contemplate having all your work done by contract. A good deal of what we should design could not be done well by contract. It would be impossible to make sufficiently stringent specifications for it, or to enforce them. You can’t get good plants of such sorts as would be necessary, by contract. What some Members of your Board have seemed to us to understand to be Landscape Architecture, would not in our judgment be at all suitable for the premises of a World’s Fair; no more than window gardening would be suitable, spread over a door-yard, or door-yard gardening over a park. In a study of the proportion of the parts to the whole, it is not so much the extent of ground that is to be considered, as the size and number of buildings.

The Directory is disposed to think it necessary that it should proceed at once upon estimates of the cost of the Landscape Improvements to be made. We are surprised that they do not realize the utter worthlessness of any estimates that could possibly be made, without any understanding of the number and size of the buildings and other construction to be considered. It would not necessarily cost half as much to lay out approaches, and shape and finish grounds and plant them suitably for ten large buildings of one character, arranged systematically and snugly about a spacious Court, as for twenty similar buildings scattered about the same centre much less symmetrically, with entrances and outlets differently disposed, and with requirements of a picturesque rather than of a formal, architectural character. Any estimates that could be made within a month, with no better data in respect to building plans than you can have for sometime to come, would be but a delusion and a snare. Any man who would give them to you would be a quack.

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An Architect can give you a rough approximate idea of how much it would cost to build a fire proof building, of a certain number of stories, of a given floor space, upon a given foundation; but could any one tell you how much you will need to pay for the furnishing and decoration of such a house when it is still undetermined whether there are two, three or six stories under the roof; whether there are to be ten or twenty rooms on a floor, and whether the building is to be lighted on four sides, on three sides or only at the two ends?

In a loose way it may be assumed that an equally satisfactory result could be obtained at half the cost on the North Lake Site that it could on the Jackson Park Site, and at half the cost on the Jackson Park as on the Garfield Park, and yet this is a most imperfect statement. For with four times the outlay you could not make the Fair nearly as good in outward effect on the Garfield Park Site as on the North Lake Site, while to make use of Jackson Park a wholly different principle of arrangement would be used by any Artist. You might as well judge the value of a horse by comparing his points with those of a cow of a certain value.

You must settle the question of Site with reference to the probable result in admittance fees, and this is most likely as we judge, to bring you back at last to your original intention of having a part of the Fair on the Lake Front, and a part at Jackson Park. There are many great, very great, objections to the “Dual Site,” but if you have two parts the objection to three is not much greater than to two. Possibly then it would be better to have one part on the Lake Front, one at Jackson Park, and the Agricultural division on the West Site.

We would not like to recommend it without a formal consultation with the Architect, but it strikes us as a question to be well considered before you think of taking all of the Exposition, or all but the Agricultural part to Jackson Park, whether a much more compact arrangement than you have hitherto had in view for the Lake Front might not be made satisfactory.

Suppose; for example, that we have on Michigan Avenue, a building as long as you can make it, that is to say, if I recollect aright, giving you nearly a mile frontage, unbroken in the upper part and with a colonnade below like that of the Rue de Rivoli. Give it a high basement so that the main floor extended would be say eighteen feet above the track of the Illinois Central Railroad; suppose that outside of the Railroad you had another similar building half a mile long to be approached from the first by bridging over the Railroad, and on the Lake Site of the last building a good broad promenade upon a terrace over the water of the Lake. You would then have floor space enough, and roof enough to accommodate all those parts of the Exposition desirable to be visited at night. Then from seventy-five to one hundred acres more of floor space at Jackson Park for large buildings and ten or twenty more for small scattered buildings, would provide amply for all the rest of the Exposition, except the Agricultural Department. For this, provisions could be made either by filling [197]on the Pierce property, or if preferred upon a body of land near Garfield Park, if you do not object to a triplicate ticket of admission.

Yours very truly,