THE ARNOLD ARBORETUM 



Arboretum, Professor Sargent himself. How won- 

 derfully fortunate that material collected primarily 

 in the interest of botanical knowledge should have 

 come at once into the keeping of one a scientist of 

 renown and an artist as well ! Yet at every turn 

 in the arboretum is in evidence not only Professor 

 Charles Sprague Sargent's great scientific and ad- 

 ministrative powers, but his artist's gift, his vision. 

 To return: Frederick Law Olmsted made at this 

 time a far-reaching suggestion, to the effect that 

 the arboretum become a part of the Boston park 

 system. After many vicissitudes this was accom- 

 plished; plans for drives and walks were made by 

 Mr. Olmsted, and in 1885 was commenced the 

 actual planting of trees. Professor Sargent's re- 

 port in 1879 of the forest wealth and forest trees 

 of the United States, made by invitation of the 

 government, his travels and the collections made 

 through him during that period were of inestimable 

 value to the development of the arboretum, and 

 resulted in the unsurpassed collection of North 

 American woods in the American Museum of 

 Natural History in New York, as well as the 

 greatest of all works on trees, Sargent's "The Silva 

 of North America." 

 North America first supplied the tree and shrub 



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