I have received your communication of the 28th March.

I am to leave in the steamer of tomorrow for a short journey abroad and cannot give the time necessary to any careful consideration of the questions you propound. Such an undertaking as your Society has in view should not be entered upon without an amount of special study given to the subject such as has never been given to any work of at all a similar character in this country, nor without securing continuous attention of a professional, in distinction from a commercial character, for a series of years. If what you wish could be successfully realized, it would be an invaluable service to the public. I should hope that it might be, but it certainly cannot by any ordinary method of proceeding, nor probably without the application to the problem of much greater ingenuity and skill than is ordinarily assumed to be necessary for such a purpose. It is very rare to see any streetside planting of a respectable character. I compared views {on} this subject a few years ago with Mr. H. W. S. Cleveland, now of Minneapolis, the oldest educated landscape architect in the country and a man of very large and varied observation and experience. We agreed in the opinion that not one streetside tree in a hundred of all that had been planted under our observation in the United States remained alive, otherwise than in a dilapidated, sickly and offensive condition, twenty years after planting. This will be considered hardly credible, but I would like to have consideration given to certain occurrences which have been passing under the observation of members of your Society in New York.

Somewhere about twenty years ago, a gentleman from the Office of the Commissioner of Public Works called to show me a plan for the planting of 110th Street, west of Central Park, and wished my opinion of it. I told him that the plan was entirely inadequate, and the choice of trees unsuitable to the circumstances. They were, however, planted as originally proposed. About ten years afterwards I had occasion to pass through this street and observe the condition of the trees. I do not think that one in fifty was in flourishing condition, and I should be surprised if an examination at this time should show one in a hundred to be even alive. About the same time rows of trees were planted on the streetsides around Morningside Park. A few years later Mr. Vaux and I were asked to prepare a revised plan of that Park and we found that already at least nine out of ten of these trees were worthless; most of them dead. I think all have since been removed, and perhaps others set in their places.

In the original plan of Central Park, prepared by Mr. Vaux and myself thirty-four years ago, the boundary of the Park was drawn in on all sides so as [501]to provide for a double row of trees on the streetsides about it. This plan was carried out by day’s work, under our direction, on the 5th Avenue side for a certain distance from 59th Street north. It could not be carried out on 59th St., while we were in charge, because the grading of that street having been done by contract, and two of the contractors for it in succession having failed, its completion was delayed. I think the trees were finally planted on 59th St., under contract, sometime during the period of the Civil War; perhaps under the Tweed regime shortly afterward. An examination of this locality will show an exhibition of streetside planting, which, unless an entire revision has been made since I last examined it, is of a disheartening character. One by one, here and there, the original trees have since been dying, and one by one, here and there, they have since been replaced; and replaced often, over and over again. I doubt if one of those first planted now remains alive, and those of subsequent planting are of various sizes, exceedingly irregular, and there is not the slightest promise that they will ever grow into a decent avenue, or be otherwise than a disgrace to the city. Let the trees on 5th Avenue, from 60th to 70th Sts., be compared with them and the results of studiously considered and skillful planting and care will be manifest. I do not know of any other avenue, or street-side, row of trees, of twenty-five years growth in New York or its suburbs that has nearly the promise of this.

Twenty years ago I saw a man in Buffalo, N. Y. planting about one hundred trees, under contract with the city, along the borders of a triangular space at the junction of several streets. I called the attention of a public officer of that city to the work, predicting that it would be a failure. From time to time afterwards, as I passed through the city upon various occasions, I inspected the plantation, until at last every one of the trees was seen to be dead or dying. Within a few years the place has been entirely revised and the remains of the trees removed.

I do not, by the statement of these facts, wish to discourage your Society, but only to establish the conviction that if it is to engage in such an undertaking as is proposed, it must not be imagined that success is to be obtained by what are ordinarily considered sufficient means for the purpose. I have observed the planting done a few years ago on 72nd St., west of the Central Park, and if reasonable attention is given to the guarding and care of it, I should feel confident of its coming eventually to most satisfactory results.

My experience is that the White Maple, which you say has been recommended to you for planting on Madison Avenue, while it promises well for a few years as a streetside tree, proves in the end unsuitable.

Yours Respectfully