i:?2 



TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY 



day of the Jack-at-all-trades who is mas- 

 ter of none. 



The foregoing discussion should have 

 made it clear that there is no simple cri- 

 terion by which, under all circumstances, 

 the line can be sharply drawn between 

 what a landscape architect can properly 

 do in the execution of his designs and 

 what he should not do. Experience has 

 shown, however, that there are certain 

 critical points which should be regarded 

 as red flags, marking dangers that ought 

 not to be incurred by a landscape archi- 

 tect without the most careful and meticu- 

 lous consideration of the circumstances 

 of the particular case, lest he get himself 

 into a false position ; a position either es- 

 sentially unprofessional or likely to ap- 

 pear so to others in the absence of a much 

 fuller explanation than is usually pos- 

 sible. 



One of these danger points is the dis- 

 bursement of his own funds by a land- 

 scape architect for materials delivered to 

 a client either through him or direct. 

 Such disbursement may be entirely 

 aboveboard and fully understood and ac- 

 counted for between him and his client ; 

 but it is a regular and usual step in the 

 mechanism of purchase and sale for per- 

 sonal commercial profit, and as such 

 ought to be avoided by the professional 

 man. It is practically always possible to 

 avoid it ; as by inducing the client, if 

 necessary, to establish a drawing accoimt 

 from which payments or advances are to 

 be made on the order of the landscape 

 architect. 



In the rare instances where a landscape 

 architect cannot properly and reasonably 

 avoid drawing checks in payment for 

 plants or other materials purchased for a 

 client, it is desirable, in order to make the 

 relationship clear, to open a separate 

 bank account and sign the checks as 

 "Agent for ." 



The same considerations apply to pay- 

 ments by the landscape architect on ac- 



count of other contracts entered into on 

 behalf of the client, or on account of 

 "labor" payrolls. 



This brings up the point that no sharp 

 and invariable line can be defined be- 

 tween what are and are not "materials" 

 or "labor" in the meaning of the State- 

 ment. The pencils used by a landscape 

 architect in making his studies are in fact 

 materials, but common sense shows that 

 it would be ridiculous to attempt to 

 charge them up in detail at exact cost to 

 every client for whom a landscape archi- 

 tect works. They are lumped in as a part 

 of the overhead cost of his business by 

 the landscape architect, and the charges 

 which pay for his services go in part to 

 meeting these overhead expenses. It 

 might be an amusing, hair-splitting, aca- 

 demic question for accountants to say 

 whether his lump charges for services 

 should or should not be regarded as in- 

 cluding a minute element of "profit" on 

 such materials used in rendering the ser- 

 vice ; but so long as such theoretical profit 

 is utterly negligible in amount and has 

 no practical influence upon his total 

 charges, the question remains academic 

 and of not the slightest consequence. If 

 the materials which he thus buys and 

 uses in performing his services should be- 

 come so abnormally costly in any special 

 case or cases that he is forced to take 

 special account of them in fixing his total 

 compensation, he would do well in such 

 a case to arrange for charging them up 

 to the client in detail at cost, or if the cost 

 cannot be fixed with absolute precision, at 

 an approximation to cost so close that no 

 possible element of profit in the transac- 

 tion substantially influences the amount 

 of his bills. If he goes beyond that point 

 he is substantially open to the charge of 

 deriving his compensation from a "com- 

 mercial profit on materials used." 



The case is sometimes more perplexing 

 as to "labor." The labor of his office boy 

 or his stenographer is ordinarily charged 



