Trees on McGill University Grounds. 431 



I have always regarded the sight of trees and other 

 beautiful or impressive natural objects as an educating 

 influence of no small value, and all the more needed in a 

 country whose tradition is the destruction, not the culture 

 of trees, and where, even from a utilitarian point of view, 

 arboriculture should be encouraged far more than it has 

 been ; while the love of rural beauty, for its own sake, at 

 present so lamentably deficient among us, would be an 

 influence not only elevating but tending to the best kind of 

 patriotism. For this reason I had hoped to leave behind 

 me, in connection with McCfill, a college park, which, if not 

 large, should be attractive and instructive from its variety 

 and the number of interesting trees contained in it, where 

 our young men could learn to know and love the useful 

 and ornamental trees of our country, and whence some of 

 them might go forth to take up the pursuits so admirably 

 carried out by our late lamented graduate and friend, 

 Charles Gribb. This portion of our educational work has 

 for the present been suspended, except in so far as it can 

 be renewed on the Trafalgar property ; but I hope that the 

 slender and imperfect record of it above given may aid 

 those who may have opportunity to continue it under bet- 

 ter auspices, and may possibly tend to induce some large- 

 minded benefactor to bestow on the University a sufficient 

 tract of land for a botanical garden and arboretum, like 

 those connected with some of the greater universities on 

 this continent and abroad. 



For the present we have secured, as a refuge for a portion 

 of our collections, the use of a desirable property on the 

 mountain, belonging to the Trafalgar Institute ; but this is 

 only temporary, and it is evident that to make adequate 

 experiments on tree culture, and to perpetuate the evidence 

 of our results, requires a permanent property, and this of 

 some magnitude and with somewhat varied soils and ex- 

 posures. Our botanical department, as now organized 

 under Prof. Penhallow, would render this beneficial not 

 only to students, but to the country at large. 



