Mr. Jefferson's writings, his University of Virginia, his
Monticello, give unmistakable evidence of his appreciation
of landscape, of the value of buildings as elements of land-
scape, and of the relation that they should bear to the topog-
raphy and to the outlook of a site.

   Had he not loved and appreciated landscape, he would not
have said, "And our own dear Monticello, where Nature has
spread such a rich mantle under the eye, mountains, forests,
rocks, rivers. There is a mountain there in the opposite di-
rection of the afternoon's sun, the valley between which and
Monticello, is five hundred feet deep." "How sublime to look
down upon the workhouse of Nature to see her clouds, hail,
snow, rain, thunder, all fabricated at our feet."

   In his outline of the University curriculum in the letter of
September 7, 1814, to Peter Carr, President of the Board
of Trustees, he designated as his third division, Professional
Grades, stating that to the Professional School would come
among others, the "agricultor"; to the Department of Rural
Economy, the gentleman, the architect, the pleasure gardener,
painter, and musician. In the School of Fine Arts he included

   Thus in the educational forecast of his greatest monument,
the University of Virginia, and in the design of his home as
indicated elsewhere, does Jefferson recognize the broader
phases of landscaping which at that time was no more clearly
differentiated in the popular mind, from gardening, architect-
ure, horticulture, or engineering, than it is to-day.

   In Mr. Jefferson's day, the most important constructive
work of his century, as well as the classics of the profession
that deals with landscape, was being produced in England by
such practitioners and writers as Repton, Kent, Price, Gilpin,
Pope, and Addison. Of the books then produced, the late
Frederick Law Olmsted, the master mind of this profession
in America, first placed in the hands of his students Wheatley's
"Observations on Modern Gardening." With this book in
hand, Mr. Jefferson made "A tour to some of the English
gardens" in March and April, 1776, made "chiefly," he
states, "for such practical things as might enable me to esti-
mate the expenses of making and maintaining a garden of
that style." He says that Wheatley's descriptions "are, in
point of style, models of perfect elegance and classical cor-
rectness; they are as remarkable for their exactness." Mr.
Jefferson, in his own description of these gardens, intelligently
and discriminatingly comments upon the merits and defects

   There was included with this knowledge and appreciation
of the fine arts, a practical interest in and an intimate know-
ledge of the mechanical devices and methods, and the materials
used in the construction of buildings and landscapes. The
sketches in his notes of travel, his letters to friends, his minute
instructions to his farm superintendent regarding the farming
and manufacturing at his Monticello, and the plans and direc-
tions for the construction of the University made with his own
hands, give abundant evidence of this. He was a skillful sur-
veyor, too, for he in person surveyed and drew the plans of
his own estates and the University site. His engineering
knowledge enabled him to bring the University water-sup-
ply from basins fed with surface and spring water "in wooden
pipes from the neighboring high lands," and also to seek for
a contingent supply, as indicated by his inquiries "for a per-
son acquainted with the art of boring for water to immense
depths. We have occasion for such an artist at our University."

   Mr. Jefferson's interest in city planning is also indicated in
his letter of February 8, 1805, in which he refers to yellow
fever as originating in low, ill-cleansed parts of the town
and suggests a "checker-board plan" in which "black
squares only to be building squares, and the white ones to be
open in turf and trees." "I have accordingly proposed that

   That Mr. Jefferson's "garden" and "gardening" repre-
sented in his mind what we term "landscape," is indicated
by the statement in his "traveling notes" of June 3, 1788,
to young friends who were going abroad; "Gardens [are]
peculiarly worth the attention of an American, because it is
the country of all others where the noblest gardens may be
made without expense. We have only to cut out the
superabundant plants."

   The most notable example of Jefferson's own cutting out
of the super-abundant plants to make a landscape is to be
observed on the road through his estate from Charlottesville
to Monticello. This road, after leaving the village, crosses a
tree-arched stream, then follows its shore for some distance
before beginning its hillside climb. At a point a little more
than halfway up to the saddle of the ridge which is termi-
nated by Monticello is one spot which I conceive was sought
out by Jefferson with much woods tramping and tree-climb-
ing to establish viewpoints. Here the steep forested hill-
side towers uphill above you, and grassy fields fall steeply
downhill away from you. To the right is the edge of the
Monticello thirty-acre hilltop forest, from which Mr. Jeffer-

   The road from here soon passes into the woods, and to
the entrance lodge that lies in the saddle of the ridge. From
here there is a rather steep climb on a great curve through
a wood with a Scotch broom undergrowth by Jefferson's
monument to his home. Not far from the lodge the return
branch road, recently constructed, is passed on the right, but

   The house is located just far enough back from the point
of the ridge summit to make way for a sweep of gently
sloping lawn where a large party of people and their vehicles
could gather, turn, and move about. This was made dis-
tinctly the entrance side of the house. The house main floor
elevation was fixed at a point where its occupants could look
over a lawn one hundred and ten feet wide and one hundred
and fifteen feet long. From near its floor level, platforms
extend east and west to the edge of the retaining wall that
holds a part of the south lawn quadrangle in place. This
retaining wall extends back to office building terminals on
each side, beyond which the lawn surface merges into the
natural slope. Along the face of the west part of the retaining

   From the point where the two roads through the woods
meet near the south end of the lawn, the drive passed on a di-
rect and level line, by the ivy-covered ruins of old buildings,
then by the terraced kitchen garden on the steep easterly
slope at the right, and then on to the farm. These kitchen
gardens were constructed mostly during the period when
Mr. Jefferson was President of the United States. His over-
seer states that there were grown here "vegetables of all
kinds, figs, grapes, and the greatest variety of fruit." On the
west of this entrance road as it passed the house, the terrace
at the servants' quarter level was high enough up above the
road so that activities thereon could be screened from visit-
ors on foot or in vehicle by a low hedge.

   The sunny south lawn was the home lawn where Jeffer-
son and his family were completely protected from the in-
trusion of visitors who might come in by the only entrance
road.

   It is not necessary to go further in the description of
Monticello to show this man's genius as a designer of a

   The development of the home estate plan and the building
of the house extended over a thirty-year period that followed
1764, yet I find no evidence of radical departures from his
first conceptions. Study the topography of this section, and
you will see that he selected the most commanding of its
conveniently accessible sites, certainly the finest site on his
father's thirty thousand acres. He clearly recognized in the
beginning the big units in the natural beauty of the site, the

   One of the most important of these landscape units was
"the valley five hundred feet deep," the Charlottesville Valley,
his "sublime workhouse of Nature." It was here that the
site of the University of Virginia was officially located Au-
gust 1, 1818, on a ridge, where the College Trustees had
directed on May 5, 1817, that the first building should be
erected. The beauty of this valley had so appealed to Mr.
Jefferson, and his conception of the relation of building to
landscape was so broad, that he must have had definitely in
mind, during all these constructive years, the visual connec-
tion between his first love "Monticello" and the University,
of which he expressed his desire to be called the father, in the
epitaph which he wrote. At his home the westerly slope below
the house and its south lawn were cleared of trees and laid
in grass. This gave an unobstructed view of the University.
On that side of the University ridge that faced Monticello,
the outbuildings and the ranges were stepped down the slope
to give views over their tops down into the valley and up to
Monticello from the professors' quarters in the second story
of the pavilion on the East Lawn, as well as from the stu-
dents' quarters in the East Range. This arrangement pre-

   In the design of the College, Mr. Jefferson had the benefit
of foreign travel and the intercourse with distinguished men
and women that his position as Ambassador to France and as
President of this United States gave him, advantages that had
not come to him when he conceived Monticello's plan. This
intercourse and his study of this plan gave rise to expres-
sions that represented his appreciation of landscape and its
place in design that I have referred to at the outset. While
this intercourse aided him in the development of his Univer-
sity plan, it did not impair his originality of thought or inde-
pendence of action, or his power of adapting the conceptions
of others to his special problems without making servile
copies. Not only was this true in the units of his plan, but
also in his terms of identification, such as "The Lawns,"
"The Ranges," "The Pavilions."

   In Mr. Jefferson's letter of September 7, 1814, to Peter
Carr, he states that "In his acquaintance with the organiza-
tion of the seminaries of other countries and with the opin-
ions of the most enlightened individuals he found no two
alike, each being adapted to the condition of the section or

   His statement of April 2, 1821, with many reasons why
a "Village form is preferable to a single great building,"
forecasts a plan which Mr. Herbert B. Adams refers to as
the "modern adaptation of the mediæval idea of cloistered
retreats, with colonnades and quadrangles, the latter opening
toward the south."

   May 5, 1817, the Trustees directed the erection of build-
ings in accordance with a plan presented "for buildings
about a square." Four days later Mr. Jefferson delineated
his connected pavilions and dormitories on three sides of a
"square" opening south, "with trees and grass," in a letter
to Mr. William Thornton. This letter is reproduced in Dr.
Lambeth's chapter. On January 6, 1818, the Trustees de-
scribed the purchase of land "high, dry, open, and furnished
with water," and a plan which provided for adding to the
buildings "indefinitely hereafter," "the whole in form and
effect" to have "the character of an academical village."

   On August 1, 1818, a legislative commission meeting at
Rock Fish Gap in the Blue Ridge approved the site and the
plans, with the knowledge that "one pavilion and its appen-
dix of dormitories" were far advanced and another under
way, and that the one hundred and fifty-three acres of land
that were added to the original forty-seven acres included

   Referring again to the reproductions in Dr. Lambeth's
chapters, it will be observed that Mr. Jefferson in his first
plan located the ranges (dormitories) close to the rear of
the lawn, class-room and professors' homes (pavilions), with
gardens at the back of the ranges, and then ingeniously re-
versed the gardens on his plan to bring them between the
ranges and lawns by cutting out and reversing a part of his
drawing. This last arrangement permitted a direct access by
stairs to the gardens from the professors' homes in the sec-
ond story of the pavilions which were included in one plan
and partly built, as indicated by Dr. Lambeth. The service
road and yard, used in common by two pavilions, were shut
off from the gardens by the serpentine walls. Thus you will
see he provided a secluded outdoor compartment for profes-
sors' families that corresponded to his Monticello south lawn.

   Regarding these changes, Mr. J. C. Cabel, who was Mr.
Jefferson's most helpful legislative co-worker, but whose
criticism on the style and constructions of buildings were
generally not accepted, says, "I was extremely happy to be
informed by General Cocke that you had annexed the gar-
dens to the back yards of the pavilions."

   In locating the group of buildings, Mr. Jefferson so fixed

   The rotunda also was placed at the head of a valley, run-
ning with the axis line, and through which a most effective
view of this structure was to be obtained from uplands a third
of a mile to the north.

   It will be observed that this orientation of the quadrangle
was made to take advantage of the steep slopes and valleys
in making both outlook and inlook to landscapes and build-
ings more effective, in the same manner that similar situations
were taken advantage of at Monticello at the fine view on the
road up, as well as in the location of the house. That this was
a result of a study of his landscape and topography is made
evident by the fact that he did not follow the line of least

   With these references to the landscape phases of Mr.
Jefferson's design and a previous reference to his stepping
down the building on the Monticello side of the slope, I
would have you read Dr. Lambeth's statement regarding the
false perspective which he so skillfully developed in his view
from the rotunda between the connected pavilions of the
East and West Lawns toward the view that he had retained
by keeping his "opening south."

   Some of the circumstances attending the location and con-
struction of the University, showing Mr. Jefferson's respon-
sibility for the minutest detail, will be of interest.

   You will observe Dr. Lambeth's reproduction of the orig-
inal survey notes made about the time the buildings were lo-
cated, and Mr. Jefferson's footnotes on discrepancies thereon.

   Captain Bacon states that Mr. Jefferson wrote the deed
himself for the first purchase of forty-seven acres, which

   From Mr. Tucker's "Life of Jefferson" (1837) comes
the statement that from the spring of 1819, Mr. Jefferson
procured the different workmen and superintended the build-
ing of the University. "He not only formed a general plan
of the buildings, but drafts of every subordinate part were
made by him." Captain Bacon describes minutely the event
of Mr. Jefferson's laying out the entire foundation of the
University with rule, pegs, and twine, and then immediately
setting at work upon it the ten men assembled for the pur-
pose. He also described Mr. Jefferson's almost daily visits
of inspection regardless of storms or company, and his rigid
rejection of poor materials. He refers also to the great time
and the crowds that were at the laying of the corner-stone
by President James Monroe, who was a Trustee, as were
Presidents Madison and Jefferson, both being at this cere-
mony on October 6, 1817.

   It is quite obvious that Mr. Jefferson's interest in gardens
and lawns was quite as great as it was in the buildings, and
that he intended to have tree plantations made, as indicated

   While we know that Mr. Jefferson made and executed
his own landscape planting studies at Monticello and intended
to have trees on the lawns at the University, as stated above,
I do not find that any trees were planted under his personal
direction or in accordance with any planting plan he may
have made. The only record I have of tree planting is that
the original trees of the two rows on the lawn were planted
in 1840, the present red maples and ash about 1860. Other
trees about the grounds were evidently planted at various
times without proper consideration, for they almost wholly
hide the buildings from every viewpoint.

   Mr. Jefferson did, however, have definite plans for the
creation of an arboretum, and in the preparation of this he
was assisted by the Abbé Corriea de Serra. On April 17,
1826, two months before his death, he sent Professor Emmet
a detailed plan of six acres, which included, as he states, the
extent of ground to be employed, the number and character
of plants to be introduced on it, "restrained altogether to

   Mr. Jefferson's biographers have not touched upon his
broad conception of landscape which I have endeavored to
make clear, wherein buildings are considered as important
incidents in a landscape to be definitely and accurately co-re-
lated to it. The importance of this co-relation is coming to
be more and more clearly recognized to-day, because that
profession that designs and constructs landscapes, and ar-
ranges for the location of buildings and arrangement of
grounds, is securing year by year more effective results in
coöperation with that profession that designs and constructs
buildings.

   If this chapter will help more definitely to differentiate the
responsibilities of these professions in the public mind, then
it is well that it should have been written.