1922] SARGENT, FIRST FIFTY YEARS OF THE ARNOLD ARBORETUM 131 



be used with certain restrictions as one of the Boston parks. The sugges- 

 tion met with little favor and was opposed by the governing Board of 

 the College and by the Park Commissioners of Boston. The press was 

 indifferent, and its only enthusiastic supporters were Mr. Olmsted and 

 the Director of the Arboretum, and several years of hard semipolitical 

 work were needed to make possible Mr. Olmsted's plan. On December 30, 

 1882, however, the consent of the Legislature to it having been obtained, 

 the following agreement between the City of Boston through its Park 

 Commission and the President and Fellows of Harvard College was signed : 

 " Whereas the Board of Park Commissioners of the City of Boston by 

 virtue of the authority conferred upon said Board by chapter one hundred 

 and eighty-five of the Acts of the Legislature of Massachusetts of the year 

 1875 and by the City Council of said City of Boston, by a certain written 

 instrument of even date herewith to be recorded with the Suffolk Registry 

 of Deeds have taken and located as and for a public park that tract of 

 land in that part of said City known as West Roxbury held by the College 

 and by it dedicated to the use of the Arnold Arboretum, so called, together 

 with certain adjoining tracts, the property of other persons deemed by said 

 Commissioners convenient and necessary for use in connection therewith 

 for the purposes and under the powers and limitations set forth in said 

 act and acts in addition thereto and amendment thereof And whereas 

 by an act of the General Court of Massachusetts passed on the twenty- 

 ninth day of March in the year 1880 it was enacted that in case the said 

 Board of Park Commissioners deemed it desirable so to take the said 

 lands for the said purposes the City was thereby authorized to lease such 

 portion of the said Arboretum and adjoining tracts so taken as the said 

 Board of Commissioners might deem not necessary for use as parkways 

 and grounds to the College to be held to the same uses and purposes as the 

 said Arboretum was then held under the trusts created by the wills of 

 Benjamin Bussey and of James Arnold and for such a term and upon such 

 mutual restrictions, reservations, covenants and conditions as to the use 

 thereof by the public in connection with the uses of the same under the said 

 trusts, and as to the rights, duties and obligations of the contracting parties 

 as might be agreed upon between the said Commissioners and the College. 

 And the Board of Park Commissioners on the part of the City and the 

 President on behalf of the College were respectively authorized to execute 

 and deliver the said lease. And whereas the said Board of Park Commis- 

 sioners deems such portion of the said Arboretum and adjoining tracts 

 as is hereinafter described and leased to be not necessary for use as park- 

 ways and grounds and considers that the same will be better and more 

 advantageously enjoyed and used by the public as a part of the said park 

 if the same be leased to the College for the purposes of the said trusts and 

 upon such terms and subject to such provisions with regard to the use 

 thereof by the public as are hereinafter contained. And it has been 

 agreed between the said Commissioners and the College that the same be 



