Mr. Gall’s reports show that the main constructive works in progress at Biltmore have advanced to points at which a review of them and a final [841]decision as to certain matters of detail will soon be desirable. Will you please let me know when and for how long you expect to be on the estate, and whether Mr. Hunt and Mr. Pinchot are to be with you. There are several matters as to which conference with each of them would be desirable.

One question to be considered at this time is that of the fence both for the home park and the Pink Bed Preserve. We had Mr. Gall visit Mr. Corbin’s place in New Hampshire with reference to a final discussion of this question when you should next be at Biltmore, where examples of different arrangements have been collected.

My son John, who has been in Europe this Summer, studying among other matters, the Kew and Dropmore Arboretums, is due on his return next week. I shall be prepared to go to Biltmore a few days after his arrival.

We understand that a passable road, and that clearings, have been made, so that it will now be feasible to advance study of the Arboretum plan and of all the forestry and other questions that interlock with it, with large maps before us, from a wagon. Such a study will be our most important duty in this coming visit, and I hope that after we have made it, you will be able to give final consideration to the scheme and perhaps determine the plan of operations by which it is to be carried out.

With reference to this work more especially, it will be desirable that I should lodge at the Forester’s house, and have facilities for getting about from there. I shall have Mr. Manning, and I hope that Mr. Pinchot will be with us. We should now reach definite conclusions as to various matters in which our plans are dovetailing into Mr. Pinchot’s.

I have been doubtful about accepting your offer of the Forester’s house for Mrs. Olmsted and my daughter as, lately returning home, they have not been quite in a mind to leave again so soon. But it appears now that they can leave, and I shall be glad to have them see Biltmore.

You know that I have had it in mind to use Biltmore, with your leave, as a professional school for my son Rick, who, since he left college, has been on the Government Geodetic Survey in the Rocky Mountains. He has had a good deal of preliminary instruction, and last year traveled in Europe as a student of our profession. I hope to find that it will be feasible for him to have occasional study of all the operations in progress on the estate under Mr. Gall, while serving in some useful degree, more particularly, as a pupil-assistant to Mr. Beadle. I have held the question an open one till I could consider it on the ground. I have thought, if nothing better is suggested, he might live at the Kenilworth.

The skeleton maps of the Arboretum which we have prepared and upon which we are now to determine as closely as we can by study on the ground, the position of each of several thousand trees, are fifty-four in number, each map being five feet long. For this study we shall need to have a table large enough to spread one of them upon this table to be so carried that it can be [842]worked over upon in a wagon, while overlooking the ground and with reference to various circumstances of the background, to distant prospects and to all circumstances of the topography which will affect the scenery as it will be ultimately presented to those passing on the road in a carriage.

Yours very truly.