5o8 



Garden and Forest. 



[December 19, 1888. 



of the portion shown in the plan are covered with the rem- 

 nants of what was once a fine forest of Firs and Pines and 

 Redwoods, and over the lower ground are scattered widely 

 the noble Oaks which give to the scenery of the California 

 valleys the peculiar park-like aspect which distinguishes them 

 from those of the rest of the United States. 



Mr. Olmsted's plan eml:)races, in addition to the immediate 

 surroundings of the University, the site for an arboretum, in 

 which it is proposed to gather the arboreal vegetation of 

 California and of other regions of the world with climates simi- 

 lar to that of California, and an artificially planted forest of 

 several hundred acres, which will serve as a model to 



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Jt^ig- 79.— Plan of the Leland Stanford, Jr., University. 



A: The central quadrangle, witli buildino;s now partly under construction. 

 BC; Sites for adjoining quadrangles, with proposed buildings. DE FG: Four 

 blocks of land of form and extent corresponding to the above, to be hyld in 

 reserve as sites for additional quadrangles and proposed buildings. H : Site for 

 University Church. I ; Site for Memurtal Arch. J : Sites for University Libraries 

 and Museums. K : Site for buildings of Industrial Department of the University, 

 now partly under construction. L : Site for University Botanic Garden. O O O O : 

 Four districts laid out in building lots suitable for detached dwellings and domestic 

 gardens, with public ways giving direct communication between them wnd the 

 University central buildings'. P P PP: Sites for a Kinder Garten, a Primary 

 School, an Advanced School and a School of Industry and Physical Training, 

 Q R: A direct Avenue lietween the central (Quadrangle and a proposed station of 

 the Southern Pacific Railroad, with bordering groves and promenades. Space is 

 allowed in the wheel way for a double track street railway. 



planters on the Pacific coast. It is needless, of course, at this 

 time to call attention to the importance of this particular part 

 of Mr. Olmsted's comprehensive scheme, or to urge the 

 necessity for establishing an Arboretum and Botanic Garden 

 in California, where all the climatic conditions are so unlike 

 those of the rest of the Continent, that they may be made to 

 play an important part in extending the sum of human knowl- 

 edge with regard to the trees and plants of the world. 



The leading motives of the scheme are briefly summarized 

 by Mr. Olmsted as follows : 



The ground covered by the upper portion of the sketch, and 

 extending some miles beyond, is a part of the foothills of the 



coast range and is mainly rugged and semi-mountainous. 

 . The remainder is a plain, with a moderate inclination 

 to the north-east. . . .' The central buildings of the Uni- 

 versity are to stand in the midst of the plain. . . . This 

 has been determined by the founders chiefly in order that 

 no topographical difficulties need ever stand in the way of 

 setting other buildings as they may, in the future, one after 

 another, be found desirable, in eligible, orderly and symmet- 

 rical relation and connection with those earlier provided. 



This point being fixed, the leading purpose of so much 

 of the plan as is represented in the sketch is : First — 

 to provide for convenient and economical use, by large 

 numbers, of the means of research and instruction to be 

 offered in the central buildings. Second — to provide, in the 

 arrangements devised for this purpose, an outward character, 

 suitable to the climate of the locality, that will serve to foster 

 the growth of refined, but simple and inexpensive, tastes. 

 Third — to favor the formation, in connection with the Uni- 

 versity, of a community, instructively representative of at- 

 tractive and wholesome conditions of social and domestic life. 



The four sides of the central quadrangle are to be formed 

 by a continuous arcade of stone, eighteen feet in height, 

 twenty feet in depth and 1,700 feet in length. Opening from 

 the arcade are to be a series of structures for class-rooms, 

 lecture-rooms, draughting-rooms and rooms for scientific in- 

 vestigation and instruction. Each of these is to be one high 

 and airy story, and in all desirable cases to be provided with 

 special arrangements for light and ventilation above as well 

 as on its four sides. ... Of several reasons for limiting 

 these structures to one story, the principal is, that in a build- 

 ing of two or more stories the necessity of providing on the 

 lower for any ci'oss partitions, or for the support of any con- 

 siderable weight in the superstructures, has everywhere in 

 older institutions been found to stand in the way of desirable 

 revisions of interior plans. It is considered that anything thus 

 likely to hinder the ready adoption in the future of new inven- 

 tions or methods and conveniences for liberal education 

 should be avoided. . . . The areas assigned to the second 

 and third quadrangles (B and C), are to be used as University 

 Athletic Grounds until wanted to be built upon. When taken 

 to be built upon, the next blocks of the reservation (D, E) are 

 to be substituted as Athletic Grounds, and so on. Those 

 parts of the reservation not in use as thus proposed, are to be 

 fields of the Agricultural Department of the University. 



The public streets are to have borders ten feet in breadth, 

 planted with shade trees. These borders are to be graded and 

 planted at once, and all land within the limi.ts of the plan not 

 to be presently occupied for some one of the purposes above 

 stated, is, as soon as practicable, to be closely planted. The 

 plantations are to be afterwards thinned before they become 

 crowded, and clearings are to be made among them, as, from 

 time to time, space is wanted for buildings. Building sites not 

 expected to be very soon occupied by buildings are also in- 

 tended to be inclosed with hedges. By these two expedients 

 it is hoped that the immediate surroundings of the University 

 may be prevented from taking on at any point the usual as- 

 pect of " vacant lots " in the outskirts of towns and villages, 

 which, in California, because of its dry summer climate, is apt 

 to be even more forlorn than in the Eastern States. 



That part of the public way, divided by a strip of gardened 

 ground, upon which the Library and the Museum buildings 

 (J, J) face, is to be carried upon a retaining wall with a parapet, 

 making it a terrace. The five compartments immediately to 

 the northward, below the terrace, are to be depressed areas, 

 each occupied by a mass of shrubbery, over which a broad 

 view of the principal buildings of the University will be had 

 from the head of the avenue (Q). These areas would be fields 

 of turf were it not that satisfactory turf in California can be 

 maintained only by profuse irrigation, and irrigated ground, un- 

 less kept with extreme neatness, is liable to be a source of 

 miasmatic exhalations. It is considered that the University 

 should not have the difficulty and expense imposed upon it of 

 the constant mowing, rolling, sweeping and watering of such 

 large open spaces as would thus be made necessary. In this 

 and in all other respects, the landscape and the architectural 

 design have in view ideals that pertain rather to the south than 

 to the north of Europe or to the Atlantic States. 



This work will be studied with profound interest by landscape 

 gardeners, and its gradual development will be watched with 

 interest by all persons interested in the spread of education 

 and in the growth of American civilization. 



It may be added that substantial progress has already been 

 made in the construction of the university buildings from 

 plans prepared by Messrs. Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, of 

 Boston. 



