Random Reminiscences of Men and Events
Another incident occurred at this time which showed again the kind of
real friends we had in those days, but I did not hear the full story
of it until long years after the event.
There was one bank where we had done a great deal of business, and a
friend of mine, Mr. Stillman Witt, who was a rich man, was one of the
directors. At a meeting, the question came up as to what the bank
would do in case we wanted more money. In order that no one might
doubt his own position on the subject, Mr. Witt called for his
strong-box, and said:
"Here, gentlemen, these young men are all O.K., and if they want to
borrow more money I want to see this bank advance it without
hesitation, and if you want more security, here it is; take what you
want."
We were then shipping a large quantity of oil by lake and canal, to
save in transportation, and it took additional capital to carry these
shipments; and we required to borrow a large amount of money. We had
already made extensive loans from another bank, whose president
informed me that his board of directors had been making inquiries
respecting our large line of discounts, and had stated that they would
probably want to talk with me on the subject. I answered that I would
be very glad of the opportunity to meet the board, as we would require
a great deal more money from the bank. Suffice it to say, we got all
we wanted, but I was not asked to call for any further explanations.
But I fear I am telling too much about banks and money and business. I
know of nothing more despicable and pathetic than a man who devotes
all the waking hours of the day to making money for money's sake. If I
were forty years younger, I should like to go into business again, for
the association with interesting and quick-minded men was always a
great pleasure. But I have no dearth of interests to fill my days,
and so long as I live I expect to go on and develop the plans which
have been my inspiration for a lifetime.
During all the long period of work, which lasted from the time I was
sixteen years old until I retired from active business when I was
fifty-five, I must admit that I managed to get a good many vacations
of one kind or another, because of the willingness of my most
efficient associates to assume the burdens of the business which they
were so eminently qualified to conduct.
Of detail work I feel I have done my full share. As I began my
business life as a bookkeeper, I learned to have great respect for
figures and facts, no matter how small they were. When there was a
matter of accounting to be done in connection with any plan with which
I was associated in the earlier years, I usually found that I was
selected to undertake it. I had a passion for detail which afterward I
was forced to strive to modify.
At Pocantico Hills, New York, where I have spent portions of my time
for many years in an old house where the fine views invite the soul
and where we can live simply and quietly, I have spent many delightful
hours, studying the beautiful views, the trees, and fine landscape
effects of that very interesting section of the Hudson River, and this
happened in the days when I seemed to need every minute for the
absorbing demands of business. So I fear after I got well started, I
was not what might be called a diligent business man.
This phrase, "diligent in business," reminds me of an old friend of
mine in Cleveland who was devoted to his work. I talked to him, and no
doubt bored him unspeakably, on my special hobby, which has always
been what some people call landscape gardening, but which with me is
the art of laying out roads and paths and work of that kind. This
friend of thirty-five years ago plainly disapproved of a man in
business wasting his time on what he looked upon as mere foolishness.
One superb spring day I suggested to him that he should spend the
afternoon with me (a most unusual and reckless suggestion for a
business man to make in those days) and see some beautiful paths
through the woods on my place which I had been planning and had about
completed. I went so far as to tell him that I would give him a real
treat.
"I cannot do it, John," he said, "I have an important matter of
business on hand this afternoon."
"That may all be," I urged, "but it will give you no such pleasure as
you'll get when you see those paths--the big tree on each side and
----"
"Go on, John, with your talk about trees and paths. I tell you I've
got an ore ship coming in and our mills are waiting for her." He
rubbed his hands with satisfaction--"I'd not miss seeing her come in
for all the wood paths in Christendom." He was then getting $120 to
$130 a ton for Bessemer steel rails, and if his mill stopped a minute
waiting for ore, he felt that he was missing his life's chance.
Perhaps it was this same man who often gazed out into the lake with
every nerve stretched to try to see an ore ship approaching. One day
one of his friends asked him if he could see the boat.
"No-o, no-o," he reluctantly admitted, "but she's most in sight."
This ore trade was of great and absorbing interest at Cleveland. My
old employer was paid $4 a ton for carrying ore from the Marquette
regions fifty years ago, and to think of the wickedness of this maker
of woodland paths, who in later years was moving the ore in great
ships for eighty cents a ton and making a fortune at it.
All this reminds me of my experiences in the ore business, but I shall
come to that later. I want to say something about landscape gardening,
to which I have devoted a great deal of time for more than thirty
years.
THE PLEASURES OF ROAD PLANNING
Like my old friend, others may be surprised at my claim to be an
amateur landscape architect in a small way, and my family have been
known to employ a great landscape man to make quite sure that I did
not ruin the place. The problem was, just where to put the new home at
Pocantico Hills, which has recently been built. I thought I had the
advantage of knowing every foot of the land, all the old big trees
were personal friends of mine, and with the views of any given point I
was perfectly familiar--I had studied them hundreds of times; and
after this great landscape architect had laid out his plans and had
driven his lines of stakes, I asked if I might see what I could do
with the job.
In a few days I had worked out a plan so devised that the roads caught
just the best views at just the angles where in driving up the hill
you came upon impressive outlooks, and at the ending was the final
burst of river, hill, cloud, and great sweep of country to crown the
whole; and here I fixed my stakes to show where I suggested that the
roads should run, and finally the exact place where the house should
be.
"Look it all over," I said, "and decide which plan is best." It was a
proud moment when this real authority accepted my suggestions as
bringing out the most favoured spots for views and agreed upon the
site of the house. How many miles of roads I have laid out in my time,
I can hardly compute, but I have often kept at it until I was
exhausted. While surveying roads, I have run the lines until darkness
made it impossible to see the little stakes and flags. It is all very
vain of me to tell of these landscape enterprises, but perhaps they
will offset the business talks which occupy so much of my story.
My methods of attending to business matters differed from those of
most well-conducted merchants of my time and allowed me more freedom.
Even after the chief affairs of the Standard Oil Company were moved to
New York, I spent most of my summers at our home in Cleveland, and I
do still. I would come to New York when my presence seemed necessary,
but for the most part I kept in touch with the business through our
own telegraph wires, and was left free to attend to many things which
interested me--among others, the making of paths, the planting of
trees, and the setting out of little forests of seedlings.
Of all the profitable things which develop quickly under the hand, I
have thought my young nurseries show the greatest yield. We keep a set
of account books for each place, and I was amazed not long ago at the
increase in value that a few years make in growing things, when we
came to remove some young trees from Westchester County to Lakewood,
New Jersey. We plant our young trees, especially evergreens, by the
thousand--I think we have put in as many as ten thousand at once, and
let them develop, to be used later in some of our planting schemes. If
we transfer young trees from Pocantico to our home in Lakewood, we
charge one place and credit the other for these trees at the market
rate. We are our own best customers, and we make a small fortune out
of ourselves by selling to our New Jersey place at $1.50 or $2.00
each, trees which originally cost us only five or ten cents at
Pocantico.
In nursery stock, as in other things, the advantage of doing things on
a large scale reveals itself. The pleasure and satisfaction of saving
and moving large trees--trees, say, from ten to twenty inches in
diameter, or even more in some cases--has been for years a source of
great interest. We build our movers ourselves, and work with our own
men, and it is truly surprising what liberties you can take with
trees, if you once learn how to handle these monsters. We have moved
trees ninety feet high, and many seventy or eighty feet. And they
naturally are by no means young. At one time or another we have tried
almost all kinds of trees, including some which the authorities said
could not be moved with success. Perhaps the most daring experiments
were with horse-chestnuts. We took up large trees, transported them
considerable distances, some of them after they were actually in
flower, all at a cost of twenty dollars per tree, and lost very few.
We were so successful that we became rather reckless, trying
experiments out of season, but when we worked on plans we had already
tried, our results were remarkably satisfactory.
Taking our experiences in many hundreds of trees of various kinds in
and out of season, and including the time when we were learning the
art, our total loss has been something less than 10 per cent.,
probably more nearly 6 or 7 per cent. A whole tree-moving campaign in
a single season has been accomplished with a loss of about 3 per cent.
I am willing to admit that in the case of the larger trees the growth
has been retarded perhaps two years, but this is a small matter, for
people no longer young wish to get the effects they desire at once,
and the modern tree-mover does it. We have grouped and arranged clumps
of big spruces to fit the purposes we were aiming for, and sometimes
have completely covered a hillside with them. Oaks we have not been
successful with except when comparatively young, and we don't try to
move oaks and hickories when they have come near to maturity; but we
have made some successful experiments with bass wood, and one of these
we have moved three times without injury. Birches have generally
baffled us, but evergreens, except cedars, have been almost invariably
successfully handled.
This planning for good views must have been an early passion with me.
I remember when I was hardly more than a boy I wanted to cut away a
big tree which I thought interfered with the view from the windows of
the dining-room of our home. I was for cutting it down, but some
other members of the family objected, though my dear mother, I think,
sympathized with me, as she said one day: "You know, my son, we have
breakfast at eight o'clock, and I think if the tree were felled some
time before we sat down to table, there would probably be no great
complaint when the family saw the view which the fallen tree
revealed."
So it turned out.
CHAPTER II