ISO JOURNAL OF THE ARNOLD ARBORETUM [vol. hi 



By this indenture Harvard College received as an Endowment for the 

 proposed Arboretum $103,847.57 and agreed to use for it about one hun- 

 dred and twenty-five acres of its Bussey estate. The land devoted at 

 this time to the Arboretum had a frontage on Centre Street from the posi- 

 tion of the present Centre Street entrance for about half the distance to 

 the corner of Walter Street, on South Street from a point a short distance 

 east of the present South Street entrance to the corner of Bussey Street, 

 and for about three-quarters the length of the last named street. The 

 northern boundary crossed the north meadow about where the group of 

 Phellodendrons now stands on the right hand side of the Meadow Road, 

 and was often covered with water from the brook from Centre Street 

 which discharged its water on the undrained surface of the meadow. 

 The low land near the junction of the Meadow, Forest Hills and Bussey 

 Hill Roads, now partly occupied by the three small ponds, was an undrained 

 swamp. Hemlock Hill was then perhaps more beautiful than it is now for 

 since that time several old White Pine-trees which were then in their prime 

 and rose high above the Hemlocks have died. The valley of Bussey Brook 

 at the northern base of Hemlock Hill was then covered by an almost im- 

 penetrable thicket of Alders, and the western boundary of the proposed 

 Arboretum crossed the brook a little west of the present grove of Red 

 Pines. There was no access to these one hundred and twenty-five acres 



except by a steep cart track from the entrance to the Bussey Mansion 

 across land controlled by the Bussey Institution. 



I was appointed Director of the new Arboretum by the President and 

 Fellows of the College on November 24, 1873. The prospect of being able 

 to establish a useful institution would not have been encouraging if the 

 men interested in it had had at that time as much knowledge as hope and 

 enthusiasm. For it is safe to say that not one of them had an idea of what 

 an Arboretum might be, or what it was going to cost in time and money 

 to carry out the provisions of the indenture between the Trustees under 

 Mr. Arnold's will and the President and Fellows of Harvard College; 

 and certainly not one of them was more ignorant of the subject than the 

 man selected to carry out the provisions of this agreement. He found 

 himself with a worn-out farm, partly covered with natural plantations of 

 native trees nearly ruined by excessive pasturage, to be developed into a 

 scientific garden with less than three thousand dollars a year available 



for the purpose. He was without equipment or the support and encour- 

 agement of the general public which then knew nothing about an Arbore- 

 tum and what it was expected to accomplish. The work of forming a 

 nursery, however, was begun at once, greenhouses of the Bussey Institution 

 being available for the propagation of the few plants which could at that 

 time be found in the neighborhood of Boston. 



In 1873 Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted was engaged in planning and con- 

 structing a park system for the City of Boston and suggested that that 

 part of the Bussey farm which was to be devoted to the Arboretum might 



