martinhouseclr

45 2 // SITE HISTORY & EVOLUTION regarding the request for the original planting plan: My experience with original drawings in the field is that when the operation is complete, there is no decent record and in retaining the original of your planting plan, the intention has been to have the drawing in which future improvements may be incorporated from time to time to make a chart of the plantings correct to date. An instance of such future change may be in the bulb planting, which had best be done next Fall, before which time some additions may suggest themselves. At any rate, we will want a good drawing then as well as now. If you will be satisfied, I can have a brown line print sent to you with the list this week; if not, will have to undertake another drawing. 108 A week later, Griffin makes reference to work being done at the Wright studio to make the planting plan more legible, noting the exceedingly tedious and time consuming nature of the efforts: Yesterday and day before, the planting plans went to you in two installments, the latter of which you will please bind in with the former. When I said last week, referring to these lists, I had no idea it was such an undertaking to transform manuscript to print which could material names change. See section: ‘The Blueprint and the Original’ for an account and description of the two plans. 108 WBG-DDM, 3 March 1905, Trans. Jack Quinan 2003, WMP- UB. hardly have been worse in my case than if I wrote in Chinese. I am endeavoring to make the planting plan more comprehensive and clear than it now is, aside from the question of copy, before sending it to you but the delay will not be long. [handwritten:] Yours truly, Walter Burley Griffin 109 By 20 March 1905 Martin had not received the legible planting plan. Furthermore, orders for plants from the plant lists had likely not been made yet as it seems Martin only had the list of material and not the specified quantities. Martin asks Griffin directly for the planting plan, suggesting that Griffin speed up the process by only writing numbers on the plan (to correspond to the plant lists) and not full names. 110 On Friday, March 31, Martin writes Griffin once more requesting the planting plan which has still not arrived. This letter seems as much a formality as anything, as Darwin’s note affirms that Griffin will be arriving in Buffalo on Saturday morning – yet he wants to get the fact on record that the planting plan has still not arrived. 111 In his letter, Martin also requests recommendations on where to put a Tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) and 109 WBG-DDM, 9 March 1904, Trans. Jack Quinan 2003, WMP- UB. 110 DDM-FLW (WBG), 20 March 1905, Trans. Zakery Steele 2014, WMP-UB. 111 DDM-FLW (WBG), 31 March 1905, Trans. Zakery Steele 2014, WMP-UB. Fig. 28, top and bottom Detail, blueprint version of Plan of Plantings, 15 Feb 1905.