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Yearbook^ of Agriculture 1949 



cates that their history is part and 

 parcel of the history of botanical gar- 

 dens. Such collections of trees, ar- 

 ranged as specimens or in the natural 

 groups and authentically named and 

 maintained for educational, esthetic, 

 reference, and research purposes, have 

 found a place in the botanical gardens 

 of all countries. 



WE HAVE RECORDS of some ancient 

 botanical gardens, and it is a safe as- 

 sumption that trees, and thus arbore- 

 tums, were an important part of at 

 least some of these gardens. 



History records that, 2,800 years be- 

 fore the birth of Christ, the Emperor 

 Shen Ming had a garden in which he 

 grew medicinal plants ; and that Thot- 

 mes III, the ruler of Egypt, had a 

 pleasure garden planned by the head 

 gardener of the Temple of Karnak 

 about 1500 B. G. Aristotle, the great 

 teacher of antiquity, developed a bo- 

 tanic garden at Athens about 340 B. G. 

 in which he taught his students. It 

 would appear that these ancient gar- 

 dens were established for three pri- 

 mary reasons utility, pleasure, and 

 instruction. 



A wide historical gap exists between 

 the ancient gardens and the botanical 

 gardens of the Middle Ages. As learn- 

 ing returned to Europe with the close 

 of the Dark Ages, gardens were estab- 

 lished for the utilitarian purpose of 

 growing and testing medicinal herbs. 

 One such was a medicinal garden at 

 Salerno, Italy, in 1309, which has long 

 since disappeared. Some of the medic- 

 inal gardens eventually became bo- 

 tanical gardens and arboretums. In 

 Italy, botanical gardens were started in 

 Pisa in 1543 and in Padua and Flor- 

 ence in 1545. Botanical gardens were 

 established in Germany at the Univer- 

 sity of Leipzig in 1542 and at the Uni- 

 versity of Heidelberg in 1593. A tree 

 planted a few years after the establish- 

 ment of the botanical garden at Leiden, 

 Holland, in 1587 was still standing 

 a few years ago. One of the oldest 

 botanical gardens in France has been 

 in existence at Montpellier since 1593. 



The world famous Royal Botanical 

 Gardens at Kew, London, has a par- 

 ticularly large collection of arboretum 

 material. It originally comprised two 

 royal estates, which were first com- 

 bined in 1802 and became a national 

 garden in 1841. It has been said that 

 probably the largest number of tree 

 and shrub species which has yet been 

 gathered is to be found at Kew. 



Tokyo had a well-established garden 

 in 1684. A botanical garden apparently 

 existed on the outskirts of Manila in 

 the Philippines before 1787. 



Although arboretums were usually 

 a part of botanical gardens, some early 

 collectors were primarily interested in 

 trees for purposes of ornament and for- 

 estry. Rene du Bellay, Bishop of Mans, 

 made a collection of trees at Touvoye, 

 France, about the middle of the six- 

 teenth century; the contemporary bot- 

 anists called the collection the richest 

 and the most beautiful in France, Ger- 

 many, and Italy, but it has long since 

 disappeared. 



About two centuries later, Duhamel 

 du Monceau planted approximately 

 1,000 species of trees and woody plants 

 from Europe and North America in the 

 first arboretum established for scien- 

 tific purposes. His arboretum and pub- 

 lications led to the introduction of 

 many exotic trees into French parks 

 and plantations. Some of his specimens 

 are still living. 



Pierre Philippe Andre de Vilmorin 

 was especially interested in the dif- 

 ferent geographical varieties of the 

 principal timber trees of Europe. In 

 1825 he started an arboretum at Les 

 Barres, France, which became one of 

 the most important tree stations in 

 Europe. Vilmorin planted the different 

 races and forms of the principal Euro- 

 pean timber trees and a number of in- 

 troduced species in large plantations. 

 The property became the Arboretum 

 National des Barres through purchase 

 by the French Government about 1856. 



An arboretum was established at 

 Segrez, France, in 1857 by Alphonse 

 LavaHee, which, by 1875, had become 

 one of the largest collections of woody 



