Your letter of 26th gave us our first information of the action on the Loop and was altogether an interesting & good report to the firm.

John has just returned from New York, Rochester & Buffalo. Codman leaves tomorrow for Chicago. Marion went with me (on business) yesterday to Concord. Uncle William away; Aunt Bertha, the two girls & Edward at home. No cook or other servant, so we had a picnic. I did my business satisfactorily & got on well but am the worse today. Next week Jno will be in New York and New Jersey; then Washington & Richmond, where probably I shall join him, and then both go to Biltmore. Codman to be back before I leave.

Sally Knapp has been sent from the hospital to Plymouth. Mother has gone there.

Tell Mr Ulrich that I follow closely every day his reports through Abbot with much interest and satisfaction. He appears to be getting on remarkably well. The points about which I am anxious now are these: first, as to necessary quantity of very fine turf being available; second as to the finding and securing of many fine bushy trees 20 to 30 ft high, chiefly willows, to be planted in the back of the shore masses and to bridge between the low bushes and the oaks on the island; third, as to making sure by experiments this summer that whether the water be high or low in 1893 we can be absolutely sure of having a green border to our water—a border, that is to say, of plants that will flourish and the leaves of which will cover the surface of the water, if their roots are three or four feet under the surface of the cold lake water, and which if the Lake should be low will flourish and keep verdant on the slope below the willows and flags—between the willows and flags, and the water. These would be chiefly nympheas. What I want to be assured of is that we are making [351]a sufficient trial of nympheas (& others) under the variety of circumstances necessary for a full trial and that these trials are showing favorable results.

There is a question that you may be considering about wh. I wrote Ulrich several months ago: How are we to guard against the danger that our plants will be overlaid and caught in the ice and pulled up and destroyed. I suggested that they might be covered with hay & that the ice might be cut, so that the shore ice would not float away with the main mass but be held to the shore and gradually melt away in place.

Is there any bamboo out of doors? How is it looking?

Are you getting into touch with Mr Geraldine?