SARGENT, FIRST FIFTY YEARS OF THE ARNOLD ARBORETUM 135 



the Centre Street entrance, leased from the Trustees of the Adams Nervine 

 Asylum for the purpose, and to take the place of these inadequate accom- 

 modations a modern greenhouse with cold pits and frames was built in 

 1917 on the Centre Street land for a new propagating plant. In 1919 the 

 land of the Bussey Institution between South Street and the location of 

 the Dedham Branch of the N. Y. N. H. & H. R. R.with an area of sixteen 

 acres was bought for it by friends of the Arboretum from the College; 

 and in 1922 the hill surrounded by property belonging to the Park Depart- 

 ment of Boston, and by Centre and Walter Streets and an unnamed road 

 connecting these streets, with an area of fourteen acres, has also been 

 bought bv friends of the Arboretum and presented to it. The persent 



area 



fifty acres. 



NATURAL FEATURES 



Meadows, hills and valleys are found within the boundaries of the 

 Arboretum. The ground rises gradually from the great meadow at its 

 north end to the summit of Bussey Hill from which views of the Blue Hills- 

 to the south and of Cambridge and Boston are obtained. From the top 

 of Bussey Hill the ground drops abruptly to South Street on the south and 

 to the west and southwest to the valley which extends from Centre to 

 South Streets, and which at the northern base of the second of the Arbore- 

 tum hills, Hemlock Hill, is joined nearly at right angles by the valley 

 through which Bussey Brook flows from the northwest and enters the 

 Arboretum under Walter Street. Through the valley which separates 

 the western base of Hemlock Hill from the third and highest of the Arbo- 

 retum hills, Peter's Hill, Bussey Street, a highway open to traffic, extends 

 from Walter Street at a point near the Walter Street entrance to the 

 Arboretum to South Street, and separates Peter's Hill from the rest of the 

 Arboretum. The land acquired in 1919 between South Street and the 

 railroad drops abruptly at its eastern end from the southern base of 

 Bussey Hill to a broad low peat meadow through which a new channel 

 for the Bussey Brook has been made; west of this low meadow only a 

 narrow strip of higher land separates South Street from the railroad. A 

 hill sloping to the north and east on Centre Street and separated by a 

 low depression from the base of a slope descending from Walter Street 

 and facing the north is the feature of the latest addition to the Arbore- 

 tum area. 



The great natural feature of the Arboretum is Hemlock Hill with 



its high steep cliffs rising on the north from the Bussey Brook and 

 covered so thickly with Hemlock trees that the rays of the sun rarely 

 penetrate to the ground between them. In no other public garden are 

 there such cliffs or a more beautiful remnant of a coniferous forest. Oaks 

 and other native deciduous leaved trees from one hundred to perhaps two 

 hundred years old still cover small areas on each side of the Meadow Road, 



