CHAPTER V
LANDSCAPING
There are several bits in the letters during his career as a farmer that show his earliest attempts at landscape improvement.
When the farm at Sachem’s Head, Guilford, was being considered for purchase, he wrote to his father, July 23, 1846:
I have thought a good deal about that Sachem’s Head place without knowing it was for sale (so I have of ’Miah’s). There is no fruit there, I suppose, and perhaps no soil for it. I should like to hear more about it. There is the prettiest ground for a _ferme ornée_ in that place of ’Miah’s I ever saw almost, a beautiful nook under the mountain or dell, with a fine large trout brook running through it, a quarter of a mile from David’s, half a mile from the railroad canal. The farm has been miserably cultivated by the old miserly tyrant that has gone to his account, but there is by nature excellent land and every convenience and beauty desirable.
After the Sachem’s Head farm was bought, he wrote definitely (March 23, 1847) of its landscape development to his brother, with a marginal sketch of his general idea:
I wrote shortly to father yesterday and now reply to yours of the 18th inst.
I note what you say about Alsop’s and trees. I intend to plant (trans-) but few ornamental trees and with them to take great pains,--until I know where to put my house exactly, I cannot arrange the lawn very well. The lawn is to be the grand feature of my gardening. The ground is naturally graded and finely adapted for a broad, smooth green plat broken only by a few trees or clumps, along on the rear edge of it and so circling towards the shore, some low thick shrubbery (a) is wanted. Back (cornering on b) I suppose will be a good place for an orchard (beyond the proposed barn). ’Tis there we are carting our manure now and mean to plant corn and potatoes this year.
[Illustration: Facsimile of Letter with Mr. Olmsted’s Earliest Sketch for Improvement of Grounds, 1847]
He consulted an architect regarding the proposed house, having himself first made sketches of floor plans and determined tentatively on a site. By November 10, 1847 he had planted trees, which he describes in a letter to his brother:
We have planted 75 apple trees in first rate manner, 60 quinces, too. About a dozen ornamental forest trees on the back bone of the point lot; which make quite a pretty show,--but I do not think many of them will live.
Further improvements were not carried out at Sachem’s Head on account of the relinquishment of this farm for the larger and more promising place on Staten Island.
Mr. Frederick Kingsbury in 1903, after Mr. Olmsted’s death, recalled the development of the Staten Island farm and his friend’s beginning as a landscape improver. When Mr. Kingsbury first visited the new farm, Mr. Olmsted explained how he intended to improve its appearance.
Mr. Kingsbury notes:
“The house was simple yet picturesque. It had been occupied by a tenant. The barns were quite near, and in the rear of the house was a small pond, fifteen or twenty feet in diameter, used for washing waggons, watering stock, and as a swimming place for dogs, ducks and geese. There was no turf near it. The whole place was as dirty and disorderly as the most bucolic person could desire. It was on the surroundings of the house that Olmsted first showed his genius in landscape construction.
“He moved the barns and all their belongings behind a knoll, he brought the road in so that it approached the house by a graceful curve, he turfed the borders of the pond and planted water plants on its edge and shielded it from all contamination. Thus, with a few strokes and at small expense he transformed the place from a very dirty, disagreeable farmyard to a gentleman’s house. This was his first attempt at anything of the sort, and it was as successful as anything he ever did.”
Mr. Kingsbury preserved a letter which his friend wrote him in the fall of 1848, pursuing the subject of landscape surroundings:
I am glad you are disposed to notice such things as Harral’s house so much. The effect such things have on the taste of a community,--and through that on their hearts and lives--the elevation,--I believe is very much underestimated.
I do exceedingly enjoy the view from my house, sometimes it is “wondrous beautiful”; just now for instance in this charming sleepy autumn haze, I cannot attempt to describe it, constantly changing, always renewedly interesting. I can tell you a few features always present. The water view extends over just half the circle. From the immediate opposite front, to the left of the arc, it is bounded by the horizon,--dark blue ocean, with forever distant sails coming up or sinking as they bid good-bye to America. Then all over that quarter at all distances are all sorts of vessels--at anchor or under sail--and in all variety constantly shifting. On the extreme right, across the water (Raritan Bay), the horizon is broken by the hills of Jersey some twelve miles off, I suppose. They sweep off gradually growing into something like mountains as they curve round facing us; yet to the front, suddenly and abruptly they end in a precipitous cliff similar to their relations, the Palisades of N. River. This is the Highland of Navesink, and we can just discern a cluster of white towers upon its brink, the fixed and revolving lights and the Telegraph Station.
A little beyond it (on the circle’s edge) you imagine the horizon is half broken by a long yellowish white streak. It is the sand and spray or foam of Sandy Hook, and the three singularly distinct sails are nothing but its three white light-houses. There is yet another light in sight of us and in a dark night these six lights are curiously interesting,--affecting different minds with different ideas or feelings. To me they present a cheerful, neighborhood effect. To a stranger coming here in the dark it seems to me they must have a very sociable look. It is almost impossible to realize their distance. Staten Island I am sure you would like in itself,--there are many charming inland views.
##