Frederick Law Olmsted
SUBJECT FILE
School Buildings and Grounds
Stanford University
1881-92 & UDVII
Leland Stanford

see also letter
Ulrich to FLO
Jul 29/81
filed Persins[?] - Ulrich

[?] 81


[*VII Leland Stanford
x ref later XI Style.*]

[*B 1sts*]

2d. March, 1886.

My Dear Doctor Eliot:

Returning from Washington, I find your 
card and also a most interesting letter from Charles addressed 
to John, and Harry Codman.

From the two letters we have had from him 
I am sure that Charles is having a capital time.  His happenings 
have been fortunate and he is making the best use of his opportunities.  
His observations are keen and sound and show, (without 
looking further) that he can easily be a better critic and commentator 
on landscape gardening works than any whom we have had 
for a long time.

I hope that we may hear from him next out 
of Italy and that he will be learning something there that no 
Englishman has ever learned.  I was asked the other day if I 
would go professionally to California.  "Not if it is English 
landscape gardening that is wanted", I replied "and I don't think 
I know enough for anything else."  Indeed I should like to 
spend a summer in Italy and Spain, before doing any thing in 
the larger part of our country.

Very truly yours,
(Signed) Fredk. Law Olmsted.[*VII Leland Stanford
ex ha*]

[*Chronology 
Entered on card.*]

8th June, 1886.

My dear Presdt. Eliot.

We have had another delightful letter from Charles.  
What good use he is making of his time and what a happy fellow 
he is.  

I want to know if there is any chance of his coming 
home before September (middle of August I should go unless I 
waited for him) to go with me to California along with President 
Walker to select a site and form a building and landscape scheme 
for that good man Governor Stanford's Universitatory.  There 
is not any word half big enough for his ideas of what it is to 
be.  I think that it would be a capital thing for Charles, 
and I want his help from the study that I advised him to make 
and which his letter shows that he has been making of dealing 
with California conditions in another spirit from that which 
is usual, growing out of admiration for English gardening.  I 
would pay his expenses at least, probably something more.

Your very truly,
(Signed) Fredk. Law Olmsted. 



[*VII Leland Stanford*]                   [*B 1sts*]

8th June, 1886.

My dear Presdt. Eliot.

We have had another delightful letter from Charles.  
What good use he is making of his time and what a happy fellow 
he is.  

I want to know if there is any chance of his coming 
home before September (middle of August I should go unless I 
waited for him) to go with me to California along with President 
Walker to select a site and form a building and landscape scheme 
for that good man Governor Stanford's Universitatory.  There 
is not any word half big enough for his ideas of what it is to 
be.  I think that it would be a capital thing for Charles, 
and I want his help from the study that I advised him to make 
and which his letter shows that he has been making of dealing 
with California conditions in another spirit from that which 
is usual, growing out of admiration for English gardening.  I 
would pay his expenses at least, probably something more.

Your very truly,
(Signed) Fredk. Law Olmsted. [*VII Leland Stanford
XI also-letter
-Style-*]
[*B [?]*]
[*copy 
for 
Stanford
U.*]

20th July, 1886.
My Dear Eliot: Charles)
I did not much suppose that you would take a vacation
from your European school for a visit to the Pacific, but as you
might feel an inclination before going further to see something
of the larger range of American scenery and the time to be lost at
sea is so little, I [might] thought it best to propose it.  I don't
doubt that you are right.
What you said in your note of 5th June about the 
charm of some of the old gardening work and the folly of some of
the New English work in Italy pleased me very much.  I suppose
that in at least half of our country the conditions are much less
favorable to English gardening than in northern Italy yet nobody
cares for any other. I find Governor Stanford bent on giving
his University New England scenery, New England trees and turf,
to be obtained only by lavish [of] use of water.  The landscape
of the region is said to be fine in its way, but nobody thinks of
anything in gardening that will not be thoroughly unnatural to it.
What can be done I don't know, but it will be an interesting
subject of study.
I hear that you are going to Russia. I hope that you
will find the Lothrops there. They will be most agreeable friends.
Please give my regards to them. I shall be much interested in
your opinion of the very simple planting that Andre told me about -
but three species of trees being used in the park of the principal
Emperial rural residence near St. Petersburg.
 The terrace at Washington is in great peril and I am
doing all I can to save it - the danger being that Congress will
order the western retaining wall to be pierced with windows. The
prime mover in the matter is not a frontiersman but Senator Dawes
of Massachusetts.
 Work is still suspended on Franklin Park and on all
the Boston Parks, the republicans being afraid to trust the Democratic 
Commissioners with funds for advancing it. It looks just
now as if nothing would be done this year, but I am inclined to
think that before election a new light will be seen.   They are not
good politicians who take the responsibility of keeping laboring
men out of employment.

20th July, 1886. -   page 2.
  
We have an interesting private work in a great stock
farm for Dr. Webb near Burlington, Vt. with a magnificent view
over Champlain to the Adirondacks.  I propose a perfectly
simple park, or pasture field, a mile long on the lake half a
mile deep, the house looking down upon and over it.
I enjoy all your letters exceedingly.  Pray let
us hear as much from you as you can afford.
Yours truly,
Fredk. Law Olmsted.[*VII Leland Stanford*]
[* B-1sts*]

Palo Alto
29th Sept - 1886.
Dear John,
The site is settled at
last - not as I had hoped -
and I have been giving
instructions for a topog.
survey of 300 acres.  Please
send copies of our best
photolithographed contour
surveys - more especially the
Sargent Map - to
J. G. McMillan C. E.
Care of the Hon. L. Stanford,
Menlo Park, Cal.
[*at once*]
I go to S. F. tomorrow and
hope to see the park tomorrowand get off Friday
12 ^ Oct., per the East.
I thank them I shall put
with Harry + Nick at 
Oden + hurry an 15
Omaha + Laeota, meeting
them, after a primary in
Colorado, at Omaha able
visiting Richares.

Affectionately
F.L.O.[*Letter 
Paper*]

Brookline Mass: 27" Nov: 1886.

The Honorable Leland Stanford,
My Dear Sir,
I presume that you will be arriving
in Washington before long and may wish to hear from me. I have
made no reportable progress, having been waiting for the topographical 
map, which (admirably drawn for my purpose) has
just arrived. As, in any work to be done on the site that you
have selected for the University, copies of this map will be of
value to be used in the field, I have arranged to have it photo-lithographed. 
General Walker has communicated to me the substance 
of the report that you will have received from him. I
am obliged to go next week to Niagara Falls on business of the
State Reservation Commission which it is needful to get through
before the ground near the Falls is much encumbered with ice.
As soon as I return I shall set about the drawing that you have
wished of me, intending to embody in it the principles of General 
Walker's advice, as I shall find them adapted to the topography 
of the site. I cannot [look] hope to complete this study before 
the latter part of December.
This is all I have to report at present but I should like
to state my understanding of the object to be accomplished during 
the next month and something of the view with which I shall
pursue it.
The immediate object is to present, in the form of a diagram, 
a coherent proposition, the critical discussion of which
will aid you to formulate definite instructions as to the scope
and as to many particulars, of a more mature study of the problem 
to follow. This problem I take to be the devising of a

2                                     
plan that, spreading from a nucleus such as General Walker proposes, 
shall not only show how additions may from time to time
be made to the primary building scheme that he defines, but
how several series of buildings may be arranged, the buildings
of each series radiating connectedly from the common centre of
the primary buildings. (By several series of buildings, I mean,
for example, the Academic series, the Collegiate Lodging series
the Work Shop series, the Outer Residence series and so on.)
It is not certain that such a problem can be solved except 
at a cost of convenience during the infant life of the 
University that will outweigh its advantages. But of this you
will be able to much better judge with a drawing before you in
the preparation of which the desired result has been tried for.
As I have been reflecting on what passed in our conferences at Palo Alto, I have been 
led more and more to feel that a permanently 
suitable plan for a great University in California must be
studied with constant watchfulness against certain mental tendencies 
from which neither you, nor General Walker, nor I, nor
anyone likely to have influence in the matter, can reasonably be
supposed to be free. The subtle persistency of the class of
tendencies to, which I allude is shown in the fact that the
English in India, after an experience there of nearly two centuries, 
still order their lives in various particulars with absurd 
disregard of requirements of comfort and health, imposed
by the climate, because they cannot dismiss from their minds
standards of style, propriety and taste, which are the result
of their fathers' training under different climatic conditions.
Because of less marked but not less positive differences
of climate, with buildings and grounds arranged on the principles 
that have had control at Oxford and Cambridge, Harvard and
Yale, Amherst and Williams, nothing like that which impresses3

a visitor as appropriate and pleasant in the general arrangement 
and environment of these colleges, can be had in California.  
The same may be said with regard to other collections of 
buildings with semi-rural surroundings to which throngs of people 
are likely to resort.  It would be impossible, for instance, 
in California, to maintain simply such degree of neatness as is 
seen in the Eastern or in English institutions of that description, 
at ten times their outlay for the purpose.  Yet if to secure 
some tolerable degree of neatness all who have to do with 
them should be required to pass from one building to another 
only upon certain prepared passages, as we pass on ordered 
lines between the beds of an old-fashioned flower garden, the 
result in neatness would not pay for the trouble it would cost
Neither turf nor any known substitute for covering unpaved 
surfaces between the buildings of a college can be used 
in California as turf is used in the East.  Trees rooted in 
ground that is trampled as the ground is trampled about the 
college buildings of the East would be sickly, deformed and 
short-lived.  Arrangements upon which, in the climate of the 
Atlantic States the beauty and comfort, not only of broad areas 
but even of streets and roads and yards depends, when reproduced 
as nearly as possible under the climate of California, 
will soon become unsuitable, dreary and forlorn.  An example of what is to be 
apprehended in this respect already 
appears at Berkeley. 
It has often 
been observed that the character of the buildings and grounds, 
the scenery and atmosphere, of Oxford has greatly aided English 
veneration for learning and is to all Oxford students a highly 
important element of a liberal education.  It is surely a sad 
misfortune that a young man seeking a liberal education, should 
be led, at the most impressible period of his life, to pass four 
years or more in an establishment the outward aspect of which
is expressive of an illiterate and undiciplined mind, contemptuous

 4                                         

of authority and that is essentially uncouth, ill-dressed 
and ill-mannered.
One of the largest of the college buildings at Amherst, 
of masonry construction, not old nor in bad repair, but graceless 
and gracelessly placed, has been lately taken down because 
as an offence to good taste, it had come through the advancing 
refinement of the times, to be no longer endurable.  The same 
experience will, probably, by and by occur at Berkley on a larger 
scale.  I may predict this with more propriety because before 
the Amherst Trustees had thought of getting rid of the building 
to which I refer and fifteen years before they screwed 
their courage up to doing so, I had advised them that it could 
be only a question of time when that conclusion would be reached. 
 [It is not alone that] What I have in mind at Berkley is not alone that the buildings are in a 
"cheap and nasty" style but that the disposition of them and of 
all the grounds and offices about them betrays [so much] heedlessness 
of the requirements of convenience and comfort under 
the conditions of the situation and climate.
What I say, then, is that in the plan for a great University
in California ideals must be given up that have been planted
by all that we have found agreeable and have been led to regard 
as appropriate in the outward aspect of Eastern and English 
colleges.  If we are to look for types of buildings and 
arrangements suitable to the climate of California it will 
rather be in those founded by the wiser men of Syria, Greece, 
Italy, and Spain. You will remember in what a different way from the English 
methods, the spirit of which we have inherited, the open 
spaces about nearly all buildings that you have seen in the 
South of Europe to which throngs of people resort, have been5
[*M*]
treated. In the great "front yard" of St. Peter's, for example,
not a tree [or] nor a bush [or] nor a particle of turf has been made use of.
This is not because Michael Angelo and his successors have been
blind to the beauty of foliage and verdure in suitable places.
For reasons that I have thus, I fear not yet successfully, 
tried to indicate, as well as because opportunity must be
left open for enlarging particular buildings in the manner advised 
by General Walker and for continuously extending special
departments of buildings as suggested in the beginning of this 
letter, it appears to me that all spaces not thus specifically
reserved for well-defined purposes of usefulness, should, as
much as possible, be avoided and a degree of compactness of 
arrangement anticipated in public ways and places, especially
near the centre of operations, that, having regard to Eastern
and English standards would be regarded as illiberal and tasteless.
If the principle buildings of the University could have
been placed near the edge of an elevated table-land, commanding 
a fine characteristic California distance, an advantage
might, with proper study, have been gained that would at once be
felt to more than compensate for any shortcomings from [our] 
[habitual] standards of taste of the sort that I have indicated.
Considerations, the wisdom of which I do not question, having
determined such a situation to be inexpedient, something is
most desirable to be devised, appropriate to the circumstances, 
through which, when the University is born into the world, it 
may be saved from bearing on its face an expression of hard materialism 
and "Gradgrind" practicality. This under General
Walker's advice, cannot come from any stately beauty of the
buildings, any picturesqueness in the manner of their disposition

6
or any gardening or landscape appendages. It must be a
matter of Art. It must have scholarly dignity.  It must not
be ostentatiously costly, and it must be unobtrusively incidental 
to a means of manifestly useful purpose.  Some element
of this description I feel has yet to be designed.
With kind regards and my best service to Mrs Stanford,
I am, dear Sir, 
Very Respectfully Yours,Nov. 27, 1886.
Letter to Leland 
Stanford
Embodying the general 
principles to be followed 
[?]
From FLO Sr.
Copy of this sent to 
Dr. David S. Jordan 
6 May 1891[*(1886?)*]

Instructions for Sketch Map of
so much of the Palo Alto Estate 
as lies East of the Franscisquito
Creek
   Sketch to show principal elevation 
and depressions by approximate
contours indicating variations
of line of 9 feet; outcrops
of rock, woods, fences, buildings be
on a scale of 500 ft. to the inch.
Vineyards, garden grounds, orchards
and groves to be indicated by
[subjects] emblems or verbally
or both - The position of very
important single trees outside of the above why
noted, and notes were made
where parts of the land are "thickly
wooded, where there are [Scotland?]
trees", and where there are "thickels"
of brush wood.
trees to be shown, the more
important being marked "l.o.1."
Saplings, sickly, badly delapidated
and stunted trees "l.o.2."
or if very poor l.o.3
The map to be in black and
white with strong lines
suitable for photographing.Instructions
for Survey1886 ?
Stanford ?
Letter to ?
Evidently about University of Cal.
"Natural Style of gardening
cactus appropriate near a house
not planted as a field

M



Dear Sir:
You have seemed to wish to 
have me make clearer to you than I  
have been able to in conversation 
only, and the the improvement of the 
university site, this should not  
be more of that which is called 
[the] "natural" [style] that I have been 
thus far aiming at.

[What is called natural in 
gardening operations, originated in 
England.] "Natural" as thus used 
does not mean [simply spontaneous an]
simply that which results from the 
spontaneous and unassisted action 
of nature, as with plants growing in watering places 
and rock plants in rocks, but that 
never is natural as we say it is not.[It is natural that]
ural that a road passing through a
hilly country or a forest should 
be winding and that a man passing
from one point to another in an open
plain should pursue a straight
course. [Turf  is of spontaneous
growth in]  The natural style of gardening
initiated in England, a well
minded, well watered, naturally turfy
country.  [Our] Beauty of landscape in
England lies mainly in the disposition
[of tres] of trees in relation to broad bodies
of turf.  Cactusses [an] are not of natural
growth in England, yet it is not in bad
taste and it is not unnatural that close
about a man's [house] home, as a part of the
[house?] home establishment there should be  placed
a few cactus plants.  They are decorations of
[the house the] the home.  But if a man 


should attempt to grow cactusses
[a substitute for turf grow them] thickly
on considerable spaces bringing them
into association with masses of
the foliage as is customary with glades of turf
[instead of turf, I should]
it would not be natural [never mind
it be in good taste.]  Any extensive use
of turf in Cala is equally far away
from the principles of natural gardening.
   It is not only natural in this sense but is
it is in perfectly good taste  That a coal
trimmer on a steamer should wear a
sweat stained shirt, and that he
should have black and stubby fingers
[and greasy ears and ar] and a greasy
neck and ears; but if you see him
coming into the cabin for sunday service
unwashed and with the same shirt, it
is not natural
[is not only unnatural but is extremely
bad taste] that he shd have good rings on his fingers and in his ears, a satin 
scarf and a jewelled [pin] scarf pin. 
much milder anomalies would be 
[recognized] generally recognized as
in extremely bad taste. 

[Under various circumstances a sweaty
shirt, greasy waistcoat, stained stubby 
fingers and dirty ears are not offensive
to good taste but if a jewelled scarf pin,
ear rings, finger rings and dangling seals and chains
are worn with them they [are made instantly
offensive] become very offensive [and were so
set the set the man] So if, in a garden, exhibitions of 
ferns are made in close association with
coarse [milled?] and dirty grass, [weedy side
walks walks] and weedy, kobly, dirty walks,
they stamp the whole affairs as in bad taste.
Decorative objects should never [be placed or 
appear on bodies that] appear in close
association with things which are not
themselves nice, [?] complete and [thoroughly] [first]
[rate] [good] of their kind thoroughly good. [*1032*]
[* Copy sent Mr. Coolidge 6/14/32*]

OFFICE OF H.H. RICHARDSON
BROOKLINE, MASS.
SHEPLEY, RUTAN & COOLIDGE
[*Arrived 13th May*]

[Coutes?] Ranch
Palo Alto
Menlo Park
May 3rd 87

My dear Mr Olmsted
   I have deferred writing
until tonight as no definite decision had
been arrived at. On reaching here we
showed the plans and model to the 
Governor & Mrs Stanford.  They were very
much disappointed to find the buildings
were not classified and partitioned off
They understood that Gen. Walker was
to classify and divide up the buildings
before the drawings left Brookline.
This we endeavored to explain was a 
misunderstanding on their part,
as I am sure it is, nevertheless they
instructed us to telegraph Gen Walker
to do it at once (remarking that he was
to be [*Please don't tell the Gen this*] paid for it) this we did.Both the Gov & Mrs Stanford on looking
at the model were very much disappointed,
as you expected, at seeing the rear of the
buildings as they called it towards the approach,
they paid they expected to see
the arcade on the outside and would
not believe that I had not changed
it (as we had the church, a change
which they did not at all approve of)
we explained to them that this would
be the case when the outer set of buildings
were built. They are very desirous
of having the buildings look well at the
start & therefore proposed instead of the
seven buildings on the end to build
all the buildings on the N.S & W. sides
leaving E. side of quad. open. We had
the surveyors stake out these eight
buildings and when it was completed
we went over the ground
with them they said it faced the
wrong way & that they never intended
entering the quad. from the ends.

Office of H. H. Richardson
Brookline, Mass.
Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge

2

but wished the main drive and tomb
vista to be on the long side. We showed
them how by this change they lo?ed
the vista from the tomb to the back
hills through the trees because the
church would cut it off but they
thought the vista was long enough and
would end more appropriately at the
end of the church. they also desired
a vista up & down the valley thro'
the side quadrangle. finally we told
them that this would change the grade
and would upset your work to which
the Gov. replied a Landscape Arch't.
and an Arch't. might be disappointed
but he was going to have the buildings
the way he wanted them. after this
we did the best we could to preserve your
plan as intact as possible. The Gov. insisted
that the corner stone should belaid on the 11th of May it being the son's birthday
therefore we had not time to send the plans
back to you for revission but did the best we
could under the circumstances, I have kept
the the ground live of centre quad. at grade
84. same as originally intended and have
simply turned the Quad 1/4 way round on its
axis. Both Mr. & Mrs. S. think the main entrance
should be a large memorial arch
with an enormously large approach &
in fact the very [quietness?] and reserve which
we like so much in it is what they want
to get rid of. The shaded buildings in the
enclosed plan are the six buildings on the
quad. which he has today decided upon 
building at once, together with the engine
house boiler house & work shop shown also.

We did not show him any of the
grades as he supposed everything to be
on a dead level. and as the buildings
on enclosed plan will all be according
to your first plan on grade 84 excepting
work shop Boiler & Engine houses which we
ought to have immediately - The Gov. means
business and as soon as the corner stone is laid he
is going to put on a [gaug o' coo?] near on the foundation
and will probably make a contract for
the upper portion. the field stone is only good for.


3
OFFICE OF H. H. RICHARDS
BROOKLINE, MASS.
SHEPLEY, RUTAN & COOLIDGE

foundations the San Jose is the most accessable
quarry and the best. The red stone
which I showed you comes from beyond
Ogden and would be very hard to get in
quantitie there is n old building at
San Jose which has been built for fifty
years of the stone there and is in fine
condition so we will probably use the S.J.
stone - As the Governor as made some
arrangment for quarrying it. This
stone also has a very good color in 
rock face much better than when 
dressed smooth as seen in all the
buildings in San Francisco. Mr. Waring
went over the ground today will write about
is interview with the Gov. when it takes
place as he says there is no hurry. The Gov
was in town & did not see him. Will you 
kindly show this to Mr Shepley and oblige
Yours very faithfully
Charles A. Coolidge
Chas. A Coolidge
May 3, 87.
relating to plans
of UniversityCopy sent Emory Smith July 1932

Golden Gate Park
Oct. 30th 1884

Fred Law Olmsted Esq.
Dear Sir
I enclose
a list of a few [herbs?] and shrubs
which I am confident will do
well at Palo Alto and which are
hard to find in quantity at the 
nurseries.
I was glad to hear from Corman Hammond
that you intended to write him a report
on changes that have been made in this
Park since your last visit and that
you also were to give the Commission
in regard to the improvement of the
grouping some hints for our future
guidance hoping you will find him 
to pay Golden Gate Park another visit
before going east I am very truly yours
John McLaren
Memorandum relating to the Arboretum.

   It is desired to establish at Palo Alto an Arboretum
on a much larger scale than has been contemplated
in the plans heretofore prepared, so that
what in those plans has been designated "The
University Forest" will be combined with what 
was designated "The Arboretum." In this enlarged
Arboretum it is desired that there shall be
exhibited to advantage all the trees and woody
plants of the world that can be expected to grow
to mature natural forms under the climatic
and other conditions of the locality. Of those
likely to thrive and attain a perfect natural
development, as if at home under the
local circumstances, and of those likely
to be especially valuable to the people of the
Pacific Slope either in the arts or as elements
of landscape scenery, there are to
be considerable numbers of each kind and
it is desired that these shall be exhibited not
only singly and in small clusters but inmasses and otherwise as will make them instructive.
In the distribution of the trees upon the
ground, the purpose of making the locality
agreeable and interesting as a resort for 
healthful recreation is also to be had prominently
in view. To this end roads are to
be laid out through it from which not only
the trees are to be seen to advantage but by 
which visitors will be led by convenient
routes to eminences from which the best 
distant views will be commanded and
kept open.                 (F.L.O.)
approved
Leland Stanford
San Francisco;
4th Dec. 1888.Signed by
Leland Stanford
Memorandum
as to trees for the 
University.Memorandum as to trees for planting the
street borders and the plantations
in connection with the University and
neighboring schools and dwellings.

Trees, shrubs and plants for carrying
out the general design, as represented in
the drawings submitted in Washington
last spring, are to be provided as rapidly
as practicable, and all that can be by
purchase from nurseries where they are
already growing. An expenditure in Europe
is authorized for this purpose not to exceed
one thousand dollars.
Approved,
Leland Stanford

A gentleman who has been educated as a Landscape
Architect and has been for two years
associated professionally with me is now in
Europe and I propose to ask him to visit nurseries
and select specemins for the above purpose.
F. L. O.[*Copy sent to Emory Smith July 1932*]

San Francisco, December 13, 1888.

Mr. Thomas Douglass.
 Dear Sir:--
 Please consider it an importnat part
of your duty to the University to obtain information bearing upon
the question of the manner in which trees that flourish on the
mountains and on the coast of California; on the Atlantic slope
and in other parts of the world, change character when growing in
the valleys of California, especially with reference to the probabilities 
of earlier decay and shorter life than in their natural 
habitat?
It is reported that the Monterey Pine and the Monterey Cypress 
show symptoms of old age and decay in the Sacramento Valley
before they are twenty years old. Please try to obtain exact information 
on the point.
Consider to what extent, with reference to the above question, 
Palo Alto may be assumed to have a modified coast climate, 
so that, for example, the Monterey trees, though failing in the
interior valleys, may be expected to thrive either in the low
grounds or on the foot hills of Palo Alto.
Your records should be so kept, as far as practicable, that

                                             (2)
the personal history of every tree to be planted in connection
with the University may be compiled from them.  This will not be
so difficult as may at first seem likely. Thus: All the Live 
Oaks (of California species) will probably have been grown from
seed the produce of old trees now growing in San Jose Valley or
a few other localities.  They will, with few exceptions, have been
propagated in the Palo Alto nurseries, will have been two or three
times transplanted before set in their final places, will have had
such and such treatment.  The year will be known in which each
step was taken, and by reference to meteorological records, the
manner in which they have been affected by unusual rains, frosts
or droughts.  So, too, the character of the soil and the way it
has been treated at their different stages of growth will be easily 
a matter of record.  Every item likely, a hundred years hence, 
more or less, to aid investigation in schools of Dendrology, Horticulture, 
Botany, through a study of the history of individual
trees, is desirable to be thus made available to students.  And
for the present, at least, the necessary data for the purpose can
be set down briefly and in a wholesale way, more or less as above
indicated, without much clerical labor.

Yours Truly, 
F. L. & J. C. Olmsted
Landscape Archts.F.L. & J.C.O.
Dec 13/88.
in regard to
character of trees
Keeping of records of
individual trees[*VII?*]                                                       
Copy sent to Emory Smith July 1932   [*dupl A.*]

Page 348.                                16th March, 1889.

The Hon. Leland Stanford:
My Dear Sir:
I had understood that you intended to 
come here or I should have come to see you before now in 
Washington.  A letter from Douglass of the 8th inst. 
just received states that he is informed that you will 
be at Palo Alto in three weeks.  I suppose that your 
movements will be dependent on the adjournment of the Senate 
and cannot yet be definitely determined.  But if there 
is any danger of your going to California without making 
your intended visit to Boston it is important that we 
should know it.
I am anxious that you should not return without 
having had an interview with Waring on the subject of 
Sewerage or, if possible, a visit with him to some institution 
at which a method for the disposal of sewerage 
on the principles that we have advised to be adopted, is 
in operation.
I would be glad also if you could have a short conference 
with my neighbor, Prof. Sargent, who is much the 
best informed and wisest man in the country in regard 
to trees and who is greatly interested in your scheme 
of a great collection of trees at Palo Alto.  He was for 
years the coadjutor of Asa Gray; now head of the Harvard 
Arboretum.
   Douglass writes that he has been badly set back in 
all his plans and has accomplished less than I had laid 
out for him because of the necessity of constant, close, 
personal, detailed direction of Chinamen who could not 
understand or read English and who not being able to read 
labels would make sad mistakes if he did not follow each 
man closely.  This has kept him so closely to the nursery 
itself that he could not go about to search for the seeds 
and plants of California that you most wanted nor make 
good arrangements for identifying and collecting them.  He 
found it impossible to deputize this work (except as to 
a few species growing near Palo Alto) to Chinamen.  He 
had begged Mr. Lathrop to let him have one man who 
could read plant names and take orders for operations to
be carried on not constantly under his own eye but Mr. 
Lathrop said that you had forbidden this.  At last his
father came to his assistance, but too late to allow him

-2- Stanford.                               16th March, 1889.

to accomplish what had been intended.  The last season too 
was an off year with most California trees, few being 
in bearing.  With importations, however, he has seeds 
sown of over 200 species.
Yours truly,
Fredk Law Olmsted.[*VII*]

Copy sent to Emory Smith July 1932   [*dupe A*]

Page 764.                                     23rd May, 1889.

Mr. Thomas H. Douglass:
My Dear Sir:
We duly received yours of 27th inst. and 
have been hoping for later advices telling of Senator 
Stanford's visit to the Nursery.  But probably the longer 
it is delayed the more promising it will appear to him.
Two projects for the Arboretum and the planting of 
the hills have been vetoed and I am at a loss what to prepare 
next.  But I feel that the data for a good plan are 
so obscure, inexact and untrustworthy that more opportunity 
for deliberation is not to be objected to. I depend
a good deal upon the results of your study for getting 
a better start.  I hope to see you next fall.  Meanwhile 
pleae keep us posted as fully as you can as to all that 
is going on.
              Yours very truly,
                    Fredk Law Olmsted.

Copy sent to Emory Smith July 1932

9th June, 1889.   [*Identify job dupe A*]

Dear Mr. Nash:
A few days before Senator Stanford left 
San Francisco, I placed before him a memorandum which I 
had written embodying his verbal instructions in regard 
to road making, etc.  To this he appended his signature.  
The day before he left, Mr. Douglass having in the meantime 
been appointed, I submitted an additional memorandum 
relating to the nursery and planting matters.  He read 
this over and signified his assent to it but did not sign 
it, considering, as it seemed to me, that his signature 
of the first memo. would apply to both. The next day I
called on Mr. Lothrop and showed him my memoranda.  I 
understood him to say that he had received consistent instructions 
from the Senator.  He said, however, that he 
would like to take a copy of my memoranda and took them
for the purpose, directing his clerk after they should 
have been copied to send them to me at the hotel.  As 
they had not been delivered when I left for the East I 
wrote Mr. Lothrop asking him to send them to me at Brookline.  
In response Mr. Lothrop sends me the memo.  in regard 
to the roads (as to which he has told me nothing can 
be done this winter) but states that he has sent the other 
to the Senator at Washington, not being willing to act 
upon it until the Senator signs it.
Presuming that it will be signed, may I trouble you 
to send me a copy of it.
The Senator and Mrs. Stanford may like to see the 
enclosed comments on the plan by Prof. Sargent.  Note that 
the account apparently prepared for this publication "by 
Mr. Olmsted" is simply copied from the photographed copy 
of the plan presented to the Senator in Washington, last 
winter.
                   Yours truly,
                           Fredk Law Olmsted.

Mr. Nash.[*VII Stanford*]
[*dupl A*]

Page 843.                                                   10th June, 1889.

My Dear Col. Waring:
            I have yours of 6th.
   Since I last wrote you Mr. Shepley (of the Architects)
has returned from California.  He says that Senator
Stanford appeared to suppose that you were to be
yourself in California at the time that I should be there
late this summer at which time some arrangements would
be concluded about the sewerage.  When stating that you
had works in progress at San Diego, San Luis Obispo and
Seattle, I probably gave him that impression.  If you
are not to be there, I had better prepare him for the 
arrangement that you propose.  I have noticed that when
any man is named who has had experience in California,
it does not often take him long to have a decided opinion
as to whether he wants to have to do with him or not. 
   Please tell me what you conveniently can about your
associate there; how long he has been there, what he has
been about and what has been his part in your works.
   Before you give him instructions, we will instruct 
the resident engineer and architect to be ready for him
and to facilitate his studies.  There are no convenient
arrangements there for an occasional visitor and he is
liable to a great waste of time for want of them.  Hence
I should wish to prepare his way as fully as practicable.
   Thank you very much for the book which has a very 
impressive aspect.  (I carry it in my waistcoat pocket
that I may absorb it in my next trip to town).
   You had better, if not quite impracticable, give me 
some approximate idea of probable expense of preliminary
proceedings and plans -- some limit -- for the Palo Alto
business.
                           Yours faithfully,
                                 Fredk Law Olmsted.


[*VII*]
[*dupl A*]
Copy sent to Emory Smith July 1932

Page 877.                                    Brookline, Mass., June 20th 1889.

The Honorable Leland Stanford;
      San Francisco, Cal.
         Dear Sir:
             We have furnished Mr. McMillan with
working drawings for the grading of the road system of
the University and for such grading as will be best done
at once in connection with that of the roads.
   For the road surface we have had in view the Santa 
Cruz rock bitumen as laid in San Francisco, but the plans
are equally well adapted to the Telford or the McAdam
plan of road making, if you should prefer either.  We do
not offer advice on the point because we have not sufficient
knowledge of the Santa Cruz material but from what we have
seen in San Francisco are inclined to favor it.  If this
material is to be laid, and the University is to be
opened next year we hope that you will give instructions
to have the work at least on the Central Avenue and immediately
above the central quadrangle, advanced as rapidly
as possible, contracts for the bitumen being made so that
the laying of it may follow closely the preparation of
the road bottom.
   The paving of the plaza of the Central Quadrangle
has been a matter of much concern to us.  We did at first
favor the use of rock bitumen for it, but upon mature consideration
are constrained to advise against it.  Pavements
of this class with various modifications due to 
difference of quality in the material and different methods
of preparing and applying it, have been largely used.
We have seen them in Paris, London and other European
cities and they have been laid on works with which we have
had to do in Washington, Buffalo and other American cities.
We have never seen an example in any of these cases nor
those observed in California, to which, if in the University
Quadrangle, there would not be two serious objections.
First, that of the sad color and soft, slimy texture of
the surface.  This is little objectionable in a road of
ordinary breadth, much traveled by horses and vehicles,
but in a spacious court, with no sidewalk between the
pavement and the surrounding elegant structure, it would
certainly be unpleasing.  The more unpleasing in the case
of the University because of the custom in all the Eastern
States and in the North of Europe of having college
buildings front upon plots of vivid turf, sometimes made
gay with flowers.-2-  Stanford.                                        20th June, 1889.

   The second objection to the bituminous pavement is 
that, owing probably to the varying density and tenacity 
of the material used, it has not as yet been found possible 
to give a perfectly true surface.  In all such pavements 
that we know slight irregular and unintended undulations 
are perceptible.  This is not to be objected to 
in streets of ordinary breadth with a crowned surface, 
but in an enclosed court of the breadth of that to be 
considered, where the pavement is to be framed by a perfectly 
level line of masonry and to be seen in direct 
relation with an architectural composition of unusual 
dignity, we fear that would be conspicuous and appear 
out of keeping, especially so in wet weather.
   The pavement of the Quadrangle should, we think, 
as far as possible consistently with convenience, be 
selected with regard to a unity of architectural effect 
with the buildings both in color and in form and texture.
   The best thing that we have found for the purpose 
is a paving block which is manufactured in Boston and 
has been in use here and in Philadelphia several years; 
though considerable improvement has lately been made in
it. The blocks are laid with a cement joint so that a
pavement of it is essentially one impervious stone 
and at a little distance its appearance is that of granite, 
but it has a different texture from granite and does not 
wear smooth and slippery.  A block will be sent to you with 
prices.
   We have found no other material that would in our 
judgment prove as satisfactory as this.  Next to it we 
know of nothing better than what is called "granolithic",
made with a strongly stamped surface to prevent its being 
too slippery.  It would be better in color than the bitumen; 
would not have its weak, slimy texture, but would 
appear as firm as stone and have an architectural character 
supporting that of the buildings.
                                Respectfully yours,
                                              F.L.& J.C. Olmsted.

[*VII*]
[*dupl A*]

COPY SENT MR. EMORY SMITH JULY 1932.

Page 967.                                   Brookline, Mass., 14th July, 1889.

The Hon. Leland Stanford.
      Dear Sir:
         We are completing and expect to send in a 
day or two the last of the series of working drawings for 
the grading of the streets and approaches of the University 
prepared under your instructions of last Fall.
   Among them there will be drawings for the terrace 
walls north of Garden Avenue designed with a view to the 
use of a good deal of irregular stone struck off the 
blocks set in the buildings.
   We have today received a note from the Engineer reporting 
that grading operations are expected to be in 
tomorrow and to be prosecuted rapidly.  But he adds that 
you have expressed a doubt about adhering to the plan in 
respect to the panels for shrubbery and an intention to 
write to us on the subject.  We think that we should advise 
you without delay that a change of the plan in this 
particular would involve changes in other particulars.  
We should have given sufficient grades to all of the 
streets north of Garden Avenue if we had not had that 
feature in view.  If, therefore, you decide to abandon it,
the plans should be returned to us at once and a new set
prepared.  In that case we shall need specific instructions 
from you what to do with the spaces which we have 
left with littler variation from the natural surface intending 
that they shall be filled by shrubbery over the 
surface of which a comprehensive view of the principal 
buildings of the University would be had by all coming 
up the main avenue.
   The question is as to where the balance of disadvantages 
lies.  Knowing that those of this one plan were 
very prominent to you, we had been slow to assume it fixed 
and it had been much on our minds for more than two years 
without our being able to devise any arrangement to which 
the objections did not seem to us much more serious and 
without the suggestion of any other arrangement coming to
us that would meet requirements that you had prescribed.
   You will remember that the expedient for keeping 
the view open was devised after discussion with you in 
1887; that with your approval it was incorporated in our 
plan; was fully set forth, not only graphically, in the-2- Stanford.
14th July, 1898.

large drawings brought to Washington the following spring, but in the explanatory verbal statement printed with them, and that it appeared distinctly in the large perspective drawing of the Architects, afterwards photo-lithographed. Last fall it was brought again to your attention. We refer to the facts because we should feel not a little mortified to have expended all the labor we have upon these working drawings without having been fully assured that your assent had been well considered, received and made complete and final. 
We shall be glad if you can propose a plan less open to objection for accomplishing your object. We have pondered the problem so much that we have no hope of being able to do so. We believe that when the apparent voids are filled up by the growth of the shrub foliage the effect will be satisfactory.
Very respectfully yours, 
F. L. & J. C. Olmsted.[*F.L.O. Dec. 2, 1889*]
[*School homes*]                                       
                                                  1
5th Decr. 1889.

The Hon Leland Stanford:
   Washington. D. C.

Dear Senator Stanford:
   Both Mr [Rufus?] and
Mr. Cadman came from
California with the impression
that you would want to
build a school-house next
summer at Palo Alto, and
would soon want to see plans
for it. We have had some
joint discussion of the subject
and think that we cannot
go far without consulting
you. A meeting for the purpose

would hardly be expedient
before the holidays.
You may think of coming this
way during the holidays
as you thought of doing last
year to visit Wellesley and
Smith Colleges and the new
university at Worcester. If
not we shall aim to come
and see you early in January.
With a view to a meeting we
should like to have some sketches
prepared by the discussion
of which we should be helped
to obtain your views.
But there are one or two
points upon which you may
prefer to give us instructions                      2
in advance and I shall
write what you will find
below with the object of
drawing from you any
comments that you may
be disposed to offer.
   Sites are designated on
our general plan for four
school houses. All are at
a little distance from the
quarters assigned to be occupied
by residencies for
the students of the University,
but all reasonably central
to the quarters designed
to be occupied by family
residencies. (See "p"."p"."p"."p". on

the General Plan). All have
sylvan surroundings and
space for play grounds. One
was intended to be fitted for
Kinder-garten instruction;
one for an advanced grade
of children and one as a
Preparatory School for the
University. The fourth was
proposed to be fitted for
physical training and elementary
practice in handicrafts,
training of girls in housekeeping
duties &c. It was intended
that it should be used in
turn by the pupils of the three
other schools, one teacher serving
for all and being kept
steadily employed with successive                        3
detachments. This general
scheme of schools was
explained to you and provisionally
approved.
   Would it not now be best
to build one of the larger of
these intended school houses
in such a manner that it
would for some years serve
for two? Afterwards, as population
increased, a second
school house could
be built, and the partitions
and fittings of the first be
revised suitably for one
school. If we do not
hear from you the Architects
will proceed to prepare

a sketch of a school
house in accordance with
this suggestion.
      Yours very Truly
         Fredk Law Olmsted.Stanford

Tickets to S.F.                          100.
     return                                    96.15
Sleeper                                       23.50
     return                                    23.50
Meals & Expenses out             16.10
     return                                    19.50
Expenses in S.F. & at Menlo  144.65
                                                 $423.45
                                                           40 [*H. S. Codman
Expenses to
California.
April, 1890
VII Leland Stanford*][*FLO.*]

Part I Ch. I p. 

Selection from letter from F. L. Olmsted, Senior, to Mr. Ariel Lathrop, 
San Francisco, July 7, 1890, in regard to difficulties on Leland Stanford University 
job. 

   "I am at this time (with my partners) the landscape architect of twenty works 
of considerable importance; that is to say, I do not include in that ordinary private
grounds. Nine of these twenty are large public parks of cities; two, government 
works; three, works of commercial corporations; one, of a benevolent corporation, 
and six, private undertakings of such character as to make them matters of public 
interest, operations on them being systematically reported in the newspapers. I believe 
that we have in each of these cases been employed because of advice given privately 
to our employers by those who have previously employed us in works of a 
similar class. 
   "If you have duly considered the significance of what I have said, you will 
not imagine that a business such as we have for a long time been doing is to be conducted 
without a close adherence to fixed principles, rules and customs. You will 
recognize that these principles, rules and customs must be such as, in the long run,
with regard to a great variety of situations, requirements and personal tastes, have
proved to be well adapted to accomplish results permanently satisfactory to those 
who have made use of our services. 
   "You will reflect also that the larger part of our capital and stock in trade 
must be our professional reputation and that this rests finally, not on what is 
thought of our works while they are in a fragmentary state of progress, but on what 
proves to be thought of the complete result as a whole and in actual operation. You 
will see, therefore, that we cannot afford to be employed on any work upon conditions 
that involve much risk that the result will be very different from that which our
judgment in the forecast of it would approve, and that the rules and customs of our 
business must be adapted to secure us from such risks. 
   "If experience and practice are worth anything in such a business as ours, no 
one can know better than we do, what arrangements are necessary to the accomplishment
of such results as we are called upon to aid in bringing about. Of such arrangements, 
the providing of drawings is but a very small part. We provide drawings 
as one means among other means of instructing those who are to personally and constantly 
direct the work what they are to have in view. We have never supplied drawings 
which were to be worked from, except with such additional instructions, and 
under such superintendence as we have thought necessary to the realization of the
results that we have had in view. We do not sell our drawings. They are our instruments 
for providing what we do sell. This will probably be a new view to you and a 
strange one, but if you give the question sufficient reflection, you will see that 
it is a just one, and there are legal decisions that it is a just view. 
   "The works with which we have to do vary so much in purpose, and are so differently
situated that the arrangements by which they are to be carried on must 
greatly vary, but the principles of these arrangements do not vary. They are the 
same in Florida and Canada as here in Massachusetts. They must be the same in California.
   "As a rule, those seeking our services are so much of the opinion that we know 
better than they do how the work should be organized and managed in order to accomplish 
the results which we are to plan for them, that they are apt to wish to put 
more responsibility upon us than we are willing to assume. In most cases, we are
asked, and we agree to take a leading part in the organization of the work, the 
selection of those who are to locally direct it, the purchase of materials, employment, 
and the determination of financial methods, forms and regulations."[*IV
VII
XI Prof. Practice*]

[*Contains summary of past work & ? going on 1890 (re Leland Stanford job)
dupe A*]

Page 947.
7th July, 1890.

Mr. Ariel Lathrop,
San Francisco, Cal.
     Dear Sir:- When your note of the 10th ult.,
addressed to me personally arrived, I was absent in the
South. Since my return, I have delayed replying to it,
wishing when I did so to write of more important matters
about which I thought that we might any day be hearing 
from you.
     Your note refers to a letter addressed by me to the
Governor, giving him a copy of an order signed by you
and transmitted without comment by Douglas to us. There
is no complaint in Douglas's letter to us, nor, as you
assume, in ours to the Governor, that Briggs was interfering
with work in the nursery. I presume that you
have our letter and I need not repeat what I did say.
     From Douglas's enclosure, and from a number of
brief notes from McMillan, we understand that you have
expressed opinions, issued orders and taken action which
must have seemed to them intended to show that in your
opinion we had been assuming a position with reference to
the University work which was not in harmony with yours
and that you intended to set us down from it.
     That you should have dismissed McMillan without conference
with us, without notifying us of your intention
to do so, or your reasons for doing so, and that we
should be left for weeks without and advices from the
work, sustains this view of your course. There can be
no doubt that we are effectually set down.
     I was, for a time, a little disposed to resent the
implied imputation, but thinking over all the circumstances,
I have seen that there may have been an accidental
misunderstanding between us, and I have thought that if
we could both clear ourselves of the feeling to which
such misunderstanding has naturally led and talk over the
matter in a frank and candid way, we should probably find
ourselves not so very far apart. A personal interview
being impracticable, I am going to try to give you a
better notion of our ideas by letter.
     That you may more nearly realize the spirit in which
I shall write, please reflect, first, that we have nothing
to ask of you. If at the bottom there is any substantial
question between us, it is one which the Governor
must settle; second this being the case, I should not
take the trouble to write at the length I shall, if I
had a doubt of your sincerity, or if my attitude were not
to be perfectly respectful to you.
     Our ideas have grown naturally out of our special
business experience and I wish to tell you something
about what this has been.

[*use for ? somewhere in Vol I Part II*]

Ariel Lathrop.
-2-
7th July, 1890.

     I have sometimes been alone; sometimes have had a
partner, sometimes two. To avoid complication of statement,
I shall write as if I had always been alone.

[*PL. copy to end of ? for A*]
     Thirty-three years ago, I had an order to take
general charge of the improvement of a piece of real estate
that had cost five million dollars. The order provided
that nothing should be done upon the work, except
under my instructions; that no many should be employed
or retained in employment, except by me; no payment made
except on my certificate; no reports from the work received
that I did not sign or countersign. The work
was to be driven will all practicable speed. When it
was well under way, I had nearly four thousand men employed.
It was to be an intimate combination of such
work as is commonly directed apart, respectively, by
engineers, architects and horticulturists. Thus, there
was to be grading, quarrying, dam-building, sewering; there
were to be [some fifty (?)] many costly bridges on all sorts
of foundations; there were to be numerous small buildings;
there were to be many miles of heavy retaining walls,
many miles of roads. Three hundred thousand tress were
to be planted on ground, the greater part of which was
a bare ledge of granite and another considerable part a
swamp.
     The organization and discipline of such a complex
work was one of unusual difficulty. I had to deal with
strikes and riots at the outset, and continuously with
all manner of efforts by unscrupulous men to destroy
discipline and to harass, browbeat and influence me to
aid political and personal projects. There was no end
of plots and intrigues for this purpose, and several
times I was placed by misrepresentations under the harrow
of legislative investigating committees. The last of
these started with a hostile purpose, employed experts to
make searching examinations of the work in every aspect;
its plans, construction, management and accounts. The
experts swore that the work was the best of its kind
in every respect of which they had any knowledge and that
the reports upon which the investigation had been ordered
were wrong in every particular, and the committee at
length reported that the force was well directed and
under rarely good discipline.
     But as to my success, perhaps the simplest evidence
may appear in the fact that, while I never directly or
indirectly suggested that my pay should be increased, my
salary was from time to time advanced until it came to
be more than six times as much as it was at the start.

Ariel Lathrop.                  -3-                           7th July, 1890.
 
   Probably the reason of this advance lay largely
in the means I used to guard against fraud and inefficient
service and the success of them; to illustrate
which I may mention that I invented and carried into
practice a system of time-keeping and accounts which
operated so well that it was afterwards adopted and is
yet in use by the United States Government.
   But of course the real value of my service lay in
the design of the work and in the ability to bring into
successful co-operation with artistic unity under all
the difficulties of the case, the varied elements of 
engineering, architecture and horticulture.  It was because
of this aspect of the business that those by whom
I was employed gave me, at no suggestion of mine, the 
name of "Landscape Architect".  The term landscape architecture
has since come in this country to be generally
applied to operations of the like kind.  It is not
a very fitting term, but perhaps better than any other in
as common use, and as such I use it.
   I have told you about this passage in my life in
order that you may not suppose that I do not understand,
or have no fellow feeling with, your sensitiveness to 
what may seem to you an authorized interference with your 
responsibilities.  I do not think that you could find a 
man, who, not being a prig or a martinet, could be more
alive to the wrong of such meddling than I am.
     The work of which I have been writing gave me a 
reputation and before I left it I was called to take
such part as I could in other works more or less of a 
similar character.  Except for a short time during the
war, I have ever since been constantly employed in
planning and directing such works of landscape architecture.
That I have secured their success and that my 
services have generally given satisfaction, may be inferred
from the fact that the calls upon me have been
constantly increasing.  They have come from a majority
of the States and Territories and from Canada.  They
have come unsolicited.  Many of my appointments have
been from political bodies, but they have not been political
favors.  As many have come from one party as another,
and in several important cases, my duties have continued
through several administrations, in which one party has
succeeded to power after another.  I am not a college-bred
man, but I have been employed by nine universities
and colleges.  I have been employed by the most prominent
business men of the country; four of them, for example, 
have been at the head of trans-continental railways,
and some have had a special reputation as exacting

Ariel Lathrop.                -4-                             7th July, 1890.

and close dealing men.  But twice has there ever been
a dispute as to what was due me.  In one of these cases
I went to the courts and, after two appeals, was paid
my full claim, my employer paying the costs.  The other
was a trivial matter and I did not press my view.  Of
the thousands I have employed for the service of others,
but one has been detected in any kind of criminal proceeding
against those who have employed me, and in
this case the loss was trifling.
   I am at this time (with my partners) the landscape
architect of twenty works of considerable importance;
that is to say, I do not include in that ordinary
private grounds.  Nine of these twenty are large public
parks of cities; two, government works; three, works of
commercial corporations; one, of a benevolent corporation,
and six, private undertakings of such character as to
make them matters of public interest, operations on them
being systematically reported in the newspapers.  I believe
that we have in each of these cases been employed 
because of advice given privately to our employers by
those who have previously employed us in works of a 
similar class.
   If you have duly considered the significance of 
what I have said, you will not imagine that a business
such as we have for a long time been doing is to be conducted
without a close adherence to fixed principles,
rules and customs.  You will recognize that these principles,
rules and customs must be such as, in the long
run, with regard to a great variety of situations, requirements 
and personal tastes, have proved to be well 
adapted to accomplish results permanently satisfactory
to those who have made use of our services.
   You will reflect also that the larger part of our
capital and stock in trade must be our professional reputation
and that this rests finally, not on what is
thought of our works while they are in a fragmentary
state of progress, but on what proves to be thought of
the complete result as a whole and in actual operation.
You will see, therefore, that we cannot afford to be employed 
on any work upon conditions that involve much
risk that the result will be very different from that
which our judgment in the forecast of it would approve,
and that the rules and customs of our business must be
adapted to secure us from such risks.
   If experience and practice are worth anything in
such a business as ours, no one can know better than we
do, what arrangements are necessary to the accomplishments
of such results as we are called upon to aid in bringing
about.  Of such arrangements, the providing of drawingsAriel Lathrop.              -5-                          7th July, 1890.

is but a very small part. We provide drawings as one
means among other means of instructing those who are to
personally and constantly direct the work what they are
to have in view. We have never supplied drawings which
were to be worked from, except with such additional instructions,
and under such superintendence as we have
thought necessary to the realization of the results
that we have had in view. We do not sell our drawings.
They are our instruments for providing what we do sell.
This will probably be a new view to you and a strange
one, but if you give the question sufficient reflection,
you will see that it is a just one, and there are legal
decisions that it is a just view.
   The works with which we have to do vary so much in
purpose, and are so differently situated that the arrangements 
by which they are to be carried on must greatly
vary, but the principles of these arrangements do not
vary. They are the same in Florida and Canada as here
in Massachusetts. They must be the same in California.
   As a rule, those seeking our services are so much
of the opinion that we know better than they do how the
work should be organized and managed in order to accomplish
the results which we are to plan for them, that
they are apt to wish to put more responsibility upon us
than we are willing to assume. In most cases, we are 
asked, and we agree to take a leading part in the organization
of the work, the selection of those who are to
locally direct it, the purchase of materials, employment,
and the determination of financial methods, forms and
regulations.
   The heavier part of the work, especially at the outset,
being nearly always of the sort which engineers are
accustomed to lay out and superintend, it almost invariably
happens that an engineer, and usually an engineer
residing in the neighborhood of the work and familiar with
the local conditions, is employed to obtain such information 
as we need before studying out the design, and to
personally receive and superintend the carrying out of
our instructions. Such is the case with each of the
twenty works we now have on hand and to which we have referred,
and as we infer that it is more particularly
on this point that we have unwittingly moved, in your
opinion, out of our proper lines, I will mention the fact
of a few particular cases. That you may not imagine them 
to be cases in which political considerations obtain,
they shall be cases of private works for well-known men.
   We are, as landscape architects, supervising the improvement
of a place for Mr. William Rockefeller, another

Ariel Lathrop.                -6-                      7th July, 1890.

for Mr. H. McK. Twombly, and three others for the Vanderbilt
family.
   For each of these works there is an engineer under
our instructions and reporting to us., as McMillan has
been as to the University work. The arrangements vary
according to local conditions. One of the Vanderbilt
works is in Maine. The engineer for that work was chosen,
engaged and installed by us. He was last week employing
ninety men in grading, draining, dam-building
and road-building. His pay-rolls are sent to us and
then, with our endorsement, to Mr. Vanderbilt, who commonly
sends a cheque for the amount to the engineer.
But Mr. Vanderbilt has several times, when going from
home, placed a fund at our command sufficient to cover
pay-rolls and bills for materials to be bought, for some
months in advance, asking us to make payments for him.
In fact, we serve with respect to this work a good deal
as purchasing and financial agents.
   The second of these works is in Richmond County,
New York. The engineer is also one of our selection,
and neither Mr. Vanderbilt nor any other agent of his but
ourselves, has ever seen or had direct communication with
him. Bills are paid upon the engineer's certificate, 
when endorsed by us.
   The third of these works is that for the improvement
of an estate of six thousand acres in North Carolina.
This is under the general supervision of a resident
attorney and business agent, who is also a friend
and relative of Mr. Vanderbilt. This agent pays the
hands on the work and, as a rule, pays bills, without
our certificate. Most of the supplies are bought by
him direct. But we have made purchases of such things
as it is supposed that we can select and buy to the best
advantage, and these have amounted in the last six months
to about eight thousand dollars, bills for which have
not been paid until verified and approved by us. Otherwise,
we are not concerned with the financial arrangements.
We do not see the pay-rolls.
   Visiting the ground before the work began, we
found that the agent had employed a local engineer to 
make surveys. This engineer appeared to us capable,
honest and efficient. He knew the country and, at our
suggestion, was taken as the engineer of the work. He
is paid $1800.00, has a house and garden on the property,
with fuel and a horse and horse keep. There are three
assistant engineers at a hundred dollars a month; a resident
horticulturist at $1800.00 and a house, with an 
assistant and a nurseryman foreman. All our plans andAriel Lathrop. 
-7-
7th July, 1890.

instructions for this work have been given to the engineer and the horticulturist and they are constantly reporting to us. While writing this letter, three reports have come from them. The office of the business agent is under the same roof with their office and he sees, or may see, all our letters to them. And he may, and we presume he does, examine the letter books recording their reports to us. We believe the arrangement is satisfactory to him and to Mr. Vanderbilt. Not one twentieth part of our correspondence with the estate is directly with the agent. 
You will notice that this last case is almost exactly parallel with that of the University work. When I first visited Palo Alto, I found on the ground an engineer employed by you and I was referred to him for such engineering information and assistance as we wished. We presumed that you and the Governor wished us to instruct and employ him as the engineer of the work in the customary way, and not finding him evidently incompetent, we did so. I can see now that this may not have been your understanding or your wish, but it has only lately occurred to me to doubt it. I do not yet realize why the arrangement has not been satisfactory to you, except as you have misunderstood the spirit in which we have accepted it. 
You may ask if we have not generally paid, or partially paid, the engineer, architect and horticulturist in such cases. Never, in a single instance, any more than we have paid the decorators of the house, or the sculptor supplying fountains or statuary. It has never been suggested to us that we should. We know of no large work in this country or in Europe, the general designer of which pays the resident technical directors of operations. We have known hundreds where they were paid by the proprietor. We should be perfectly willing to adopt such an arrangement if the Governor wished it, of course at an additional charge. The Governor has never expressed such a wish, nor is he paying us more than our usual charge. 
When the Governor wished to engage in our services as landscape architects, had we not a right to suppose, nothing being said to the contrary, that he desired such services as it has been customary with us to supply, to be rendered in the usual manner, with the facilities usually provided? Could any other theory of our duty be sustained in a court of justice? 
But our view is sustained on stronger ground than this inquiry would imply. In some cases, those who em-

Ariel Lathrop. 
-8- 
7th July, 1980.

ploy us wish to have a written agreement with us. We have such an agreement with Mr. Vanderbilt, and with the city of Boston, for example. A copy of the form used was last year shown the Governor, but he did not wish a written agreement. He assented to the provisions of the form shown him, however, among which was the following: - 
"Adequate surveys and maps and all other means, aid and service required for the information of the parties of the second part, and for the elaboration and setting out upon the ground of the intended plans shall be provided without expense to the parties of the second part, and in order to secure good work of its kind in all that is to be undertaken under this agreement, men of good standing and competent in the opinion of the parties of the second part (F. L. Olmsted & Co.) shell be employed by the party o the first part in each of the several departments of Engineering, Architecture, Forestry, and Gardening, who with suitable assistants, shall act co-operatively with, and under the general direction and supervision of the parties of the second part." 
We believe that the best way for the Governor to get from us the services he desires is the one we supposed had been adopted, and upon which we have been working for four years. Your recent actions show evidently that your views either were never in accord with ours as to this, or that you have lately changed them and we therefore request that you at once define your policy so that we may know what our position is to be. We will promise to consider it with every disposition to accomplish your wishes. But please remember that our arrangement with the Governor was made with such understanding as we have indicated, and that we have never assented, nor could we assent to an arrangement such as your understanding of the matter has lately seemed to us to be. 
I assure you that no man competent could do what the Governor has told us that he wished us to do would accept such an arrangement.

Yours truly,
Fredk Law Olmsted.7th July, 1890.

Mr. Ariel Lathrop,
San Francisco, Cal.
     Dear Sir:- When your note of the 10th ult., addressed
to me personally, arrived, I was absent in the South. Since
my return, I have delayed replying to it, wishing when I did so
to write of more important matters about which I thought that
we might any day be hearing from you.
     Your note refers to a letter addressed by me to the
Governor, giving him a copy of an order signed by you and
transmitted without comment by Douglas to us. There is no
complaint in Douglas's letter to us, nor, as you assume, in
ours to the Governor, that Briggs was interfering with work
in the nursery. I presume that you have my letter and I need
not repeat what I did say.
     From Douglas's enclosure, and from a number of brief
notes from McMillan, we understand that you have expressed
opinions, issued orders and taken action which must have
seemed to them intended to show that in your opinion we had been
assuming a position with reference to the University workA. L. 2

which was not in harmony with yours and that you intended to
set us down from it.
     That you should have dismissed McMillan without conference
with us, without notifying us of your intention to do so, or
your reasons for doing so, and that we should be left for
weeks without any advices from the work, sustains this view
of your course. There can be no doubt that we are effectually
set down.
     I was, for a time, a little disposed to resent the
implied imputation, but thinking over all the circumstances,
I have seen that there may have been an accidental
misunderstanding between us, and I have thought that if we
could both clear ourselves of the feeling to which such
misunderstanding has naturally led and talk over the matter in
a frank and candid way, we should probably find ourselves
not so very far apart. A personal interview being impracticable,
I am going to try to give you a better notion of our
ideas by letter.
     That you may more nearly realize the spirit in which I
shall write, please reflect, first, that we have nothing to ask
of you. If at the bottom there is any substantial question
between us, it is one which the Governor must settle; second,A. L. 3

this being the case, I should not take the trouble to write at
the length I shall, if I had a doubt of your sincerity, or if
my attitude were not to be perfectly respectful to you.
     Our ideas have grown naturally out of our special business
experience and I wish to tell you something about what this
has been.
     I have sometimes been alone; sometimes have had a partner,
sometimes two. To avoid complication of statement, I shall
write as if I had always been alone.
     Thirty-three years ago, I had an order to take general
charge of the improvement of a piece of real estate that had
cost five million dollars. The order provided that nothing
should be done upon the work, except under my instructions;
that no man should be employed or retained in employment,
except by me; no payment made except on my certificate; no
reports from the work received that I did not sign or
countersign. The work was to be driven with all practicable
speed. When it was well under way, I had nearly four thousand
men employed. It was to be an intimate combination of such
work as is commonly directed apart, respectively, by engineers,
architects and horticulturists. Thus, there was to be grading,
quarrying, dam-building, sewering; there were to be some
thirty costly bridges on all sorts of foundations, thereA. L. 4

were to be numerous small buildings; there were to be many
miles of heavy retaining walls, many miles of roads. Three
hundred thousand trees were to be planted on ground, the
greater part of which was a bare ledge of granit and another
considerable part a swamp.
     The organization and discipline of such a complex work
was one of unusual difficulty. I had to deal with strikes
and riots at the outset, and continuously with all manner of
efforts by unscrupulous men to destroy discipline and to
harass, browbeat and influence me to aid political and
personal projects. There was no end of plots and intrigues
for this purpose, and several times I was placed by
misrepresentations under the harrow of legislative investigating
committees. The last of these started with a hostile
purpose, employed experts to make searching examinations of the
work in every aspect, its plans, construction, management and
accounts. The experts swore that the work was the best of its
kind in every respect of which they had any knowledge and that
the reports upon which the investigation had been ordered
were wrong in every particular, and the committee at length
reported that the force was well directed and under rarely
good discipline.
     But as to my success, perhaps the simplest evidence mayA. L. 5

appear in the fact that, while I never directly or indirectly
suggested that my pay should be increased, my salary was from
time to time advanced until it came to be more than six times
as much as it was at the start.
     Probably the reason of this advance lay largely in the
means I used to guard against fraud and inefficient service
and the success of them, to illustrate which I may mention
that I invented and carried into practice a system of timekeeping 
and accounts which operated as well that it was
afterwards adopted and is yet in use by the United States
Government.
     But of course the real value of my service lay in the
design of the work and in the ability to bring into successful
co-operation with artistic unity under all the difficulties
of the case, the varied elements of engineering, architecture
and horticulture. It was because of this aspect of the business
that those by whom I was employed gave me, at no suggestion of
mine, the name of "Landscape Architect". The term landscape
architecture has since come in this country to be generally
applied to operations of the like kind. It is not a very fitting
term, but perhaps better than any other in as common use,
and as such I use it.A. L. 6

     I have told you about this passage in my life in order
that you may not suppose that I do not understand, or have no
fellow feeling with, your sensitiveness to what may seem to
you an unauthorized interference with your responsibilities.
I do not think that you could find a man, who, not being a
prig or a martinet, could be more alive to the wrong of such
meddling than I am.
     The work of which I have been writing gave me a reputation
and before I left it I was called to take such part as I could
in other works more or less of a similar character. Except
for a short time during the war, I have ever since been constantly
employed in planning and directing such works of
landscape architecture. That I have secured their success
and that my services have generally given satisfaction, may be 
inferred from the fact that the calls upon me have been
constantly increasing. They have come from a majority of the
States and Territories and from Canada. They have come
unsolicited. Many of my appointments have been from political
bodies, but they have not been political favors. As many have
come from one party as another, and in several important cases,
my duties have continued through several administrations, in
which one party has succeeded to power after another.
I am not a college bred man, but I have been employed by nineA. L. 7

universities and colleges. I have been employed by the most
prominent business men of the country, four of them for example,
have been at the head of trans-continental railways, and some
have had a special reputation as exacting and close dealing men.
But twice has there ever been a dispute as to what was due me.
In one of these cases I went to the courts and, after two
appeals, was paid my full claim, my employer paying the costs.
The other was a trivial matter and I did not press my view.
Of the thousands I have employed for the service of others,
but one has been detected in any kind of criminal proceeding
against those who have employed me, and in this case the
loss was trifling.
     I am at this time, (with my partners) the landscape
architect of twenty works of considerable importance, that is 
to say, I do not include in that number ordinary private
grounds. Nine of these twenty are large public parks of cities;
two, government works; three, works of commercial corporations;
one, of a benevolent corporations, and six, private undertakings
of such character as to make them matters of public interest,
operations on them being systematically reported in the
newspapers. I believe that we have in each of these cases
been employed because of advice given privately to our employersA. L. 8

by these who have previously employed us in works of a
similar class.
     If you have duly considered the significance of what I 
have said, you will not imagine that a business such as we have
for a long time been doing is to be conducted without a close
adherence to fixed principles, rules and customs. You will
recognize that these principles, rules and customs must be such
as, in the long run, with regard to a great variety of
situations, requirements and personal tastes, have proved to be
well adapted to accomplish results permanently satisfactory to
those who have made use of our services.
     You will reflect also that the larger part of our capital
and stock in trade must be our professional reputation and that
this rests finally, not on what is thought of our works while
they are in a fragmentary state of progress, but on what
proves to be thought of the complete result as a whole and in
actual operation. You will see, therefore, that we cannot
afford to be employed on any work upon conditions that involve
much risk that the result will be very different from that
which our judgment in the forecast of it would approve, and
that the rules and customs of our business must be adapted to
secure us from such risks.
     If experience and practice are worth anything in such a 
business as ours, no one can know better than we do, whatA. L. 9

arrangements are necessary to the accomplishment of such
results as we are called upon to aid in bringing about. Of such
arrangements, the providing of drawings is but a very small
part. We provide drawings as one means among other means
of instructing those who are to personally and constantly
direct the work what they are to have in view. We have never
supplied drawings which were to be worked from, except with
such additional instructions, and under such superintendence
as we have thought necessary to the realization of the results
that we have had in view. We do not sell our drawings. They
are our instruments for providing what we do sell. This will
probably be a new view to you and a strange one, but it you
give the question sufficient reflection, you will see that it
is a just one, and there are legal decisions that it is a just
view.
     The works with which we have to do vary so much in
purpose, and are so differently situated that the arrangements
by which they are to be carried on must greatly vary, but the
principles of these arrangements do not vary. They are the
same in Florida and Canada as here in Massachusetts. They must
by the same in California.
     As a rule, those seeking our services are so much of the
opinion that we know better than they do how the work should beA. L. 10

organized and managed in order to accomplish the results
which we are to plan for them, that they are apt to wish to
put more responsibility upon us than we are willing to assume.
In most cases, we are asked, and we agree to take a leading part
in the organization of the work, the selection of those who are
to locally direct it, the purchase of materials, employment, and
the determination of financial methods, forms and regulations.
     The heavier part of the work, especially at the outset,
being nearly always of the sort which engineers are accustomed
to lay out and superintend, it almost invariably happens that
an engineer, and usually an engineer residing in the neighborhood
of the work and familiar with the local conditions, is
employed to obtain such information as we need before
studying out the design, and to personally receive and
superintend the carrying out of our instructions. Such is the
case with each of the twenty works we now have on hand and to
which we have referred, and as we infer that it is more
particularly on this point that we have unwittingly moved in
your opinion, out of our proper lines, I will mention the
facts of a few particular cases. That you may not imagine them
to be cases in which political considerations obtain, they shall
be cases of private works for well-known men.A. L. 11

     We are, as landscape architects, supervising the improvement
of a place for Mr. William Rockefeller, another for Mr.
H. McK. Twombly, and three others for the Vanderbilt family.
     For each of these works there is an engineer under our
instructions and reporting to us, as McMillan has been as to
the University work. The arrangements vary according to
local conditions. One of the Vanderbilt works is in Maine.
The engineer for that work was chosen, engaged and installed
by us. He was last week employing ninety men in grading,
draining, dam-building and road-building. His pay-rolls are
sent to us and then, with our endorsement, to Mr. Vanderbilt,
who commonly sends a cheque for the amount to the engineer.
But Mr. Vanderbilt has several times, when going from home,
placed a fund at our command sufficient to cover pay-rolls and
bills for materials to be bought, for some months in advance,
asking us to make payments for him. In fact, we serve with
respect to this work a good deal as purchasing and financial
agents.
     The second of these works is in Richmond County, New York.
The engineer is also one of our selection, and neither Mr.
Vanderbilt nor any other agent of his but ourselves, has ever
seen or had direct communication with him. Bills are paid uponA. L. 12

the engineer's certificate, when endorsed by us.
     The third of these works is that for the improvement of
an estate of six thousand acres in North Carolina. This is
under the general supervision of a resident attorney and
business agent, who is also a friend and relative of Mr.
Vanderbilt. This agent pays the hands on the work and, as a
rule, pays bills without our certificate. Most of the supplies
are bought by him direct. But we have made purchases of such
things as it is supposed that we can select and buy to the best
advantage, and these have amounted in the last six months to
about eight thousand dollars, bills for which have not been
paid until verified and approved by us. Otherwise, we are
not concerned with the financial arrangements. We do not see
the pay-rolls.
      Visiting the ground before the work began, we found that
the agent had employed a local engineer to make surveys. This
engineer appeared to us capable, honest and efficient. He
knew the country and, at our suggestion, was taken as the
engineer of the work. He is paid $1800.00, has a house and
garden on the property, with fuel and a horse and horse keep.
There are three assistant engineers at a hundred dollars a
month; a resident horticulturist at $1800.00 and a house,
with an assistant and a nurseryman foreman. All our plans and

A. L. 13

instructions for this work have been given to the engineer
and the horticulturist and they are constantly reporting to us.
While writing this letter, three reports have come from them.
The office of the business agent is under the same roof with
their office and he sees, or may see, all our letters to them.
And he man, and we presume he does, examine the letter books
recording their reports to us. We believe the arrangement is
satisfactory to him and to Mr. Vanderbilt. Not one twentieth
part of our correspondence with the estate is directly with the agent.
     You will notice that this last case is almost exactly
parallel with that of the University work. When I first
visited Palo Alto, I found on the ground an engineer employed
by you and I was referred to him for such engineering information
and assistance as we wished. We presumed him as the
engineer of the work in the customary way, and not finding him
evidently incompetent, we did so. I can see now that this
may not have been your understanding or your wish, but it has
only lately occurred to me to doubt it. I do not yet realize
why the arrangement has not been satisfactory to you, except
as you have misunderstood the spirit in which we have accepted it.
     You may ask if we have not generally paid, or partially
A. L. 14

paid, the engineer, architect and horticulturist in such cases.
Never in a single instance, any more that we have paid the
decorators of the house, or the sculptor supplying fountains
or statuary. It has never been suggested to us that we should.
We know of no large work in this country or in Europe, the
general designer of which pays the resident technical directors
of operations. We have known hundreds where they were paid
by the proprietor. We should be perfectly willing to adopt
such an arrangement if the Governor wished it, of course at
an additional charge. The Governor has never expressed such
a wish, nor is he paying us more than our usual charge.

     When the Governor wished to engage our services as landscape
architects, had we not a right to suppose, nothing being
said to the contrary, that he desired such services as it had
been customary with us to supply, to be rendered in the usual
manner, with the facilities usually provided? Could any
other theory of our duty be sustained in a court of justice?
     But our view is sustained on stronger grounds than this
inquiry would imply. In some cases, those who employ us wish
to have a written agreement with us. We have such an agreementA. L. 15

with Mr. Vanderbilt, and with the city of Boston, for
example. A copy of the form used was last year shown the
Governor, but he did not wish a written agreement. He
assented to the provisions of the form shown him, however,
among which was the following: -

     "Adequate surveys and maps and all other means, aid and
"service required for the information of the parties of the
"second part, and for the elaboration and setting out upon the
"ground of the intended plans shall be provided without expense
"to the parties of the second part, and in order to secure good
"work of its kind in all that is to be undertaken under this
"agreement, men of good standing and competent in the opinion
"of the parties of the second part (F. L. Omsted & Co.) shall
"be employed by the party of the first part in each of the
"several departments of Engineering, Architecture, Forestry, and
"Gardening, who with suitable assistants, shall act co-operatively
"with, and under the general direction and supervision of
"the parties of the second part."

     We believe that the best way for the Governor to get from
us the services he desires is the one we supposed had been
adopted, and upon which we have been working for four years.
Your recent actions show evidently that your views either
A. L. 16

were never in accord with ours as to this, or that you have
lately changed them and we therefore request that you at once
define your policy so that we may know what our position is
to be. We will promise to consider it with every disposition
to accommodate your wishes. But please remember that our
arrangement with the Governor was made with such understandings
as we have indicated, and that we have never assented, nor
could we assent to an arrangement such as your understanding
of the matter has lately seemed to us to be.
     I assure you that no man competent to do what the
Governor has told us that he wished us to do would accept
such an arrangement.7th July 1890.
Ariel Lathrop.
San Francisco.
Leland Stanford Est.
Defining position of Land. Arch.
Sketch of F.L.O’s professional 
experience, and professional 
standing.
General method of 
undertaking work.
[*M*][*VII
   Letter FLO to Mr. Ariel
Lathrop re Leland Stanford
July 7/1890
now filed I*]

[*VII*]
[* dupl A*]

                                     EXTRACTS.

Governor Stanford.                            7th August, 1890.

   If you wanted a group of statues, there are some 
honest men who would advise you to get a draughtsman to
make a drawing, and then to give this drawing, with an
order for the work, to a stone-cutter. Hundreds of
wretched statues in granite have been made here for soldiers'
monuments under such advice during the last
twenty years. If, instead of taking such advice, you
should employ a professional sculptor, the manner in which
the sculptor would proceed with the business would seem
to an adviser of this class, very unwise. Not seeing any
good reason for the sculptor's proceeding in any other
way than which a stone-cutter would adopt, he would assume
that there were no reasons and treat contemptuously the
sculptor's assertions that there were. A sculptor could
do no work fit to be called sculpture, if, from day to
day, as his work advanced, he were required to satisfy
such an adviser.
   Of course, I am imagining an extreme case. What I
mean is that Mr. Lathrop's view of the University work
differs from ours in the manner, if not in the degree,
that such a view of the requirements of sculpture differs
from a sculptor's view. Imagine a sculptor attempting
to produce a statue, through workmen and by processes
which a stone-cutter would use, throwing overboard all
that he has learned of his profession beyond what a
stone-cutter had learned; imagine this, and it may give 
you some idea of the position in which I feel that Mr.
Lathrop demands that we shall place ourselves. We do
not offer our services to be rendered under such conditions,
and you have no right to put us, or let us be put,
in such a position.
   You will see also, from Mr. Lathrop's reply, of
which a copy is likewise enclosed, that I completely
failed, Mr. Lathrop taking the ground that we have nothing
to do with the University business, except to supply
drawings. If we want data for the preparation of these
drawings, he will direct a surveyor to obtain such data
for us.
   That, you see, accords with the idea with which
people order stone-cutter's statues. You may get in
that way what can be called a statue, but you cannot
get a work of art. Proceeding in that spirit, you cannot
expect your statue to have much of the quality of
unity or composition; to be refined, delicate, graceful, 
or subtly suggestive to the imagination. You cannot expect
it to have a useful educative influence, if set up
in a school room. What do you expect when you requireGovernor Stanford.
-2-
7th August, 1890.

such a work as you have undertaken at Palo Alto to be dealt with in a similar perfunctory, mechanical spirit?

(Signed) Fredk Law Olmsted.[*1032*]                                                                           [*JCC*]
COPY SENT MR. EMORY SMITH JULY 1932.
OFFICE OF 
Leland Stanford Jr. University
Palo Alto, Nov 24th 1890
P.O. ADDRESS: 
MAYFIELD,
Santa Clara Co., Cal.

FL Olmsted and Co
Brookline Mass.     [*Ansd, WSR, FLO*]
Gents
Gov Stanford ordered the
circles lowered one foot and I have done it to
seven of them will finish as soon as the
asphaltum men get through with their work.
The Governor does not want any more tall
growing plants in them. It was a very difficult
piece of work and I fear a number of the
plants will die. They all had a fine growth of
new roots but the transplanting last spring
weakened them more or less and this handling
although carefully done would disturb them
very much. I have orders to trim all the Oaks
on the University grounds. Cut out several
trees near the residence. Also Eucalyptus in
the Park and plant another Orchard. Gov
and Mrs Stanford leave for Washington tomorrow
The Trustees are down today and I am to see theOFFICE OF
Leland Stanford Jr. University. 
(2)
Palo Alto, ____________189
P.O. ADDRESS:
MAYFIELD,
Santa Clara Co., Cal.

Governor after they leave. Ground was broken
Yesterday for the Museum. Prof Bonte Secry
of University of California was here Sunday
and requested me to ask Mr Olmsted if he had
a copy of the plans he drew for them as they
were lost or mislaid He has not seen them
in ten years. I wish you would send plans 
of the grounds where the Cypress hedges are
to be planted as I have several thousand two
to four feet high and not sufficient Nursery
Grounds to transplant them into.  Pinus insignia 
P pinaster (or Maritima) P Canariensis & P pinea should
be set out this season if possible especially
the first two kinds

Yours Very Truly
Thos. H. Douglas.Thos Douglas
Nov. 24, 1890
Governor has ordered
circles lowered. No
more tall growing plants
wishes plan of University
of California1032 COPY SENT MR. EMORY SMITH JULY 1932.  Stanford University.

Office of Leland Stanford.           File

                                                     San Francisco, Cal Nov 9- 1891
                          
F.L. Olmsted
 Brookline , Mass:
Dear Sir ,
               Your letter of the 28th walk has been received. I was very glad to hear from you. 
We are gradually improving the grounds in accordance with your plans. We have a great deal of work but there seems to be a great deal for to do before we can get the place into anything like a finished condition.
In a few days we shall have published the proceedings at the opening of the University. I shall be glad to send you a copy.
With kind regards
        Yours Very truly
         Leland Stanford     Leland Stanford
9 Nov.  1891[*VII Stanford*]
[*A*]

                                      COPY SENT MR. EMORY SMITH JULY 1932.
P. 624

J.C.O. to R.R.D                                          11th May, 1892.

Mr. Robert R. Douglas,
Waukeegan, Ill.

Dear Sir:-
   In my father's absence I beg leave to acknowledge 
your two letters of April 29th.           
   My father will be very much pleased to read
your full and interesting account of matters at the
Stanford University. It is a curious thing that
for the past three years no one has written us any
account of what was going on there that would compare
for fullness with what you now say. You mention
several buildings, for instance, which we did not know
had been erected. We cannot imagine why the Senator
will not allow the Arboretum to go on, and it would seem
that a large amount of nursery stock bought for the purpose 
will be wasted if it is not set out shortly.
   I hope you are going to have some maps and
descriptions of the interesting forest plantations
which you have such a reputation of making, at the
World's Fair.
   I should have mentioned that my father left
for Europe April 2nd, and expects to return about the
middle of June.
                                Yours very truly,
                                        J .C. Olmsted.


Instructions for Survey
and Contour Map
of about 800 acres of Palo
Alto Farm, as defined by
accompanying tracing.
   Levels to be taken 200 ft
apart each way over all [on the entire tract,]
with intermediate levels
100 ft apart upon the [hill upon]
the ridge east of the Reservoir
   The map is to be on a scale
of 100 ft. to the inch; contour
lines for every three feet of elevation,
Fences, ditches, buildings & ledges
are to be indicated, all live oak
[trees to be shown, and designated
l.o. 1 or l.o. 2, according to theirInstructions 
for 
Survey

1032
The palms 50' & by at Los Angeles
out of which Mr Carr reports [?] of 400
[?ways] in Washingtonia illicifolia?
[?] "Chilean" Oak on mountains near S. Diego.
Hull says the largest & finest oak, evergreen.       12
         40
    -------
1    4800


1,000 | 1000,000 | 12.5IV. Mainly in relation to 
      Development of [the] [Des??] Physical Plans
2. Mainly in relation to 
      administration troubles.


Copy sent Emory Smith July 1932
Generally Propagated by Cuttings

   English Laurel                          Abutilons 
   Mehernias                                Clianthus Pubescens 
   Ligustrum of sorts                   Hypericums 
   Escalonia Rubra                     ✓  Juniperus Japanese
✓ Tree Box                                     Common Lilac
   Banksian Rose                       ✓  Mediterranean Heath
✓ Cherokee   "                           ✓  Passion Vine
   Thuiopsis Dolabrata             ✓  Honeysuckles
   Veronica Imperialis                   Mulbery

Easiest Raised from Seeds

 ✓ Yucca Whipplei                      Dracaena Indivisa (Cabbage Palm)
✓     "   Filamentosa                   Cedrus Libanii
✓ Manzanita                                "           Deodora
✓ Madrono                                  "           Atlantica 
✓ Magnolia Grandiflora           Lawson Cypress
✓ Spanish Broom                      Calistemon 
   Laburnum                               Cassia 
   Grevillea Robusta                  Chinese Umbrella tree (Melia Aze)Line of trees at
Palo Alto --
Nursery.