1922] SARGENT, FIRST FIFTY YEARS OF THE ARNOLD ARBORETUM 165 



THE LIBRARY 



The Library of the Arboretum now contains 35,500 bound volumes and 

 8000 pamphlets. It was begun in 1873 when the Director bought for his 

 own use a few books needed for the arrangement of the future Arboretum. 

 This small library was gradually increased and when a few years later it 

 was determined to prepare at the Arboretum an account of the trees of 

 North America additional works on dendrology and descriptive botany 

 essential to the production of that work were obtained by him. In 1892 

 the six thousand volumes which had by that time been accumulated were 

 presented by the Director to the University, accommodations for a library 

 having at that time been provided by the Arboretum. 



The Arboretum Library contains the books in all editions and languages 

 devoted to the description of trees. Its collection of Floras partly devoted 

 to trees and monographs of genera in which trees and shrubs are described, 

 is a large one. The collections of books and papers descriptive and cul- 

 tural of various groups of plants like Conifers, Rosa, Rhododendron, Cra- 

 taegus, Quercus, Salix, etc., are as nearly complete as it has been possible to 

 make them. A complete collection of the works of Linnaeus is found in 

 the Library; and it is believed that outside the walls of the British M 

 there is not a more complete collection of the books relating to plants pub- 

 lished in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The collection of books of 

 travel in which occur descriptions of trees or aspects of vegetation is a large 

 and interesting one and contains a few rare volumes. Little attention has 

 been paid to books relating to the description and care of the fruit trees 

 usually cultivated in cold countries, for such works on pomology are found 

 in libraries devoted to horticulture. There are, however, a large number of 

 books relating to the history and cultivation of trees and shrubs valued for 

 special products like tea, coffee, cocoa, oranges and their allies, cinchona, 

 olives and the mulberry in its relation to the manufacture of silk as it has 

 seemed desirable that this library should contain all books relating to 

 woody plants with the exception of those which are more valuable in a 

 purely horticultural library. There is not a complete collection of books 

 on forestry in the Arboretum library, although it contains much that has 

 been written on this subject especially that which is descriptive of the early 

 efforts at forest management in the United States and Europe. Only a few 

 books on paleobotany, vegetable pathology, physiology and entomology 

 are now found in it. Its rapid growth in directions of more immediate 

 importance in the arrangement and study of the collections of living plants 

 has made it impossible to devote to these subjects the attention their 

 importance demands. Such books will in time find a place in the library 

 intended to furnish tjie best possible opportunity for the study of trees. 

 The library is fortunate in the possession of a large number of complete 

 sets of rare periodicals including two hundred which are now discontinued; 

 it receives regularly the numbers of three hundred serials more or less de- 

 voted to trees and their cultivation. 



