Dear Art: I quite agree with you about your attitude toward the Redding farm, across the road from our entrance. I will not be blackmailed any further, and I will not permit my friends to indulge in any exorbitant purchases just to protect me from future annoyances. Our farm house itself is now approximately one-half mile from any possible encroachment. If a "development" should start around the entrance, we would probably abandon that road except for service and farm purposes, and open up a new entrance to our place by buying from your farm the necessary right-of-way in perpetuity.1 This does suggest to me the possibility of some plants along the main road (just back of the new board fence) that would grow rapidly and protect even the fields from observation from the road.2
For the particular thirty-five acre tract of which you speak, I would not object, I think, to $200 an acre, but when they talk in terms of $20,000 for the tract they are talking sheer nonsense. I would personally start looking for a buyer for our farm before I would pay such a price.
For the entire holdings, I would certainly not go beyond $150 an acre or thereabouts. Any more would again be nothing but sheer nonsense.
I think you should tell Mr. Brown that we have not the slightest interest in either project, that is, the 35 acre tract at $20,000, or the entire 165 acre tract at $275 an acre.3
With respect to the tool shed, I personally know nothing about it whatsoever. George wrote me a letter asking whether he could erect one for the convenience of his farming operations, and saying that when I was free of my present position and ready to enter the farming operation personally, we would make a satisfactory adjustment as to the costs to him, or alternatively, the shed could be removed. All that I did in effect was to sign a letter to him giving an easement for its erection.4
He did tell me that there were to be toilet facilities in the shed, and on the strength of that information I told Mr. Tompkins or Mr. Berkey (I forget which one) that similar facilities in the big barn itself need not be put in.5
From what you tell me about the workshop they intend to put in, there may be some possibility of duplication also with the things I contemplated putting into a workshop in the garage area. If this is true--which you can find out by consultation with Mr. Berkey--then I would merely ask Mr. Berkey not to put that kind of thing in the garage.
As for actual storage room within the shed, I think this is not too important since we always have the barn itself for this machinery and to store those items that are subject to the most constant use, we could certainly find room for the remainder within the barn.
With respect to the cow that was obtained from Mrs. Heckett, I think you are pursuing exactly the right course. If, at the original price, she would like to transfer the cow to the Eisenhower farm, I would feel that such a transaction is perfectly legitimate and proper, even though the cow is worth much more than the $500 involved. The only thing that you should watch--as I know you always do--is that I am not being placed in such a position with anyone that I should have to consider myself under obligation to them for any favor of any kind. I have every confidence that when I get out of this job, I can earn the money to pay for any reasonable thing we may want to do in our farming operation, so I do not intend either to be held up by people who think they can embarrass me, nor do I intend to take favors from anyone who can thereafter assume either publicly or privately that I owe them anything.6
I am delighted that you are pursuing investigations to see whether it is feasible to provide some water tanks on the farm.7 We want nothing elaborate, but if it would be possible by mechanical methods to scoop out the necessary tanks, they might become good reservoirs in times of extreme drought. We could merely plant the banks with shrubs and grass and, when desirable, we could pump out the water with some portable type of machinery. Possibly there should be some means of drainage on the downstream side of the tanks, but I do not think that this would be so essential that exorbitant cost would be involved. My idea would be that a tank might be dug in such a way that not even a dam would be necessary to divert the creek into it, but that when the pool became completely full the water would resume its normal course downstream.
The entire idea--like others I may suggest to you--may either be highly impractical or so expensive as to be unreasonable. When in your judgment either of these conditions prevail, you should merely drop the matter. After all, the mere fact that we do not do such things now does not preclude the possibility of doing them at some time in the future.
Thinking again of the extent of our land holdings, one of these days it might be advisable for me to buy from you and your silent partner that twenty-seven acre tract that effectively overlooks our property.8 This would mean nothing except in future years, when all of us are gone--but if any of my descendants still wanted to hang on to the farm, it might be a good thing. However, such thoughts as these are just mere suggestions. Of course I intend to do nothing about anything of this kind until I have left my present post.
I am sending a copy of this letter to George, who is now in California, so that he will know my thinking on some of these matters.9
With warm regard, As ever
