124 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



November, 1917 



When the President and Fellows of Har- 

 vard University bound themselves in return 

 for Mr. Arnold's $100,000 to grow every 

 tree and shrub which could endure the cli- 

 mate of Massachusetts they committed them- 

 selves to an undertaking the difficulty of 

 which could not have been foreseen, for when 

 they made this agreement with the Arnold 

 trustees a comparatively small number of the 

 plants now growing in the Arboretum had 

 been cultivated or even discovered. The last 

 forty years has seen great activity in botanical 

 exploration for the discovery and introduc- 

 tion of new trees and shrubs, and in the crea- 

 tion of new forms by the art of the hybridizer. 

 In such work the Arboretum has played a not 

 unimportant part. After North America 

 eastern Asia has been the principal field of 

 its activities, for the trees and shrubs of north- 

 eastern Asia, next to those of northeastern 

 North America, are best able to adapt them- 

 selves to the climate of New England. The 

 Arboretum's first direct transaction with east- 

 ern Asia was in 1878 when William S. Clark, 

 who had left the presidency of the Massa- 

 chusetts College of Agriculture at Amherst, 

 to establish a similar institution at Sapporo in 

 northern Japan, sent a small collection of 

 Japanese seeds to the Arboretum. From 

 these seeds were first raised in America the 

 Japanese Tree Lilac, Syringa japonica, Cer- 

 cidiphyllum, the largest tree in Japan, the 

 two climbing Hydrangeas, H. petiolaris and 

 Schizophragma hydrangeoides, Phellodendron 

 sachalinense, Magnolia kobus, var. borealis 

 and other interesting plants. 



In 1882 Dr. Bretschneider, the learned 

 physician of the Russian Embassy at Peking, 

 sent to the Arboretum 

 a small collection of 

 seeds which proved one 

 of the most important 

 gifts it has ever re- 

 ceived. From these 

 seeds there were raised 

 here, among other 

 plants, three Lilacs of 

 first-rate importance as 

 garden plants. Syringa 

 pekinensis, S. villosa 

 and S. pubescens, the 

 single-flowered form of 

 g Prunus triloba, P. tom- 

 entosa, Crataegus pin- 

 natifida, Fraxinus Bun 

 geana, F. chinensis, var. 

 rhynchophylla, Rhodo- 

 dendron mucronulatum, 

 Philadelphus pekinen- 

 sis, Quercus variabilis, 

 Celtis Bungeana, Tilia 

 mongolica, Pyrus betu- 



These two pyramidal forms of our common Maples should 

 be of some landscape value. Sugar Maple on left with Red 

 Maple, rare, on right 



laefolia, Hydran- 

 g e a Bretschnei- 

 deri, Betula dahu- 

 rica, Lonicera 

 chrysantha, Ostry- 

 opsis Davidiana 

 and other valu- 

 able plants. 



It was the suc- 

 cess in Massa- 

 chusetts of the 

 plants raised 

 from the Bret- 

 schneider seeds 

 that turned my 

 attention to the 

 importance of 

 more thorough 

 botanical explor- 

 ation in China 

 than had yet 

 been attempted 

 and led to the 

 Wilson expedi- 

 tions to central 

 and western 

 China. These 

 were undertaken 

 first by a London 

 nurseryman a t 



the suggestion of the Arboretum on lines 

 proposed by it, and later by the Arboretum 

 itself. Mr. Wilson's travels have greatly in- 

 creased the number of trees and shrubs which 

 are now cultivated in the United States and 

 Europe and have made the Arboretum the 

 best place for the study of the ligneous vege- 

 tation of eastern Asia. 



In addition to the plants raised from the 

 seeds sent by Colonel Clark from Sapporo the 

 Arboretum had been able in its early years to 

 gather together a number of pL.nts sent to this 

 country from Japan to Francis Parkman, the 

 historian, and to the Parsons' Nursery at Flush- 

 ing, New York, by Dr. G.R.Hall and by Thomas 

 Hogg, and Japanese plants were growing so well 

 here that I went to Japan in the summer 

 of 1892 in the hope of increasing the collec- 

 tion of Japanese plants in the Arboretum. 

 As a result of this journey the Arboretum 

 was able to add to its collections all the de- 

 ciduous-leaved Japanese Oaks, Ulmus japon- 

 ica, Fraxinus longicuspis, three species of 

 Enkianthus, two new Crabapples, Buxus 

 japonica, Abies sacchalinensis, Prumts Maxi- 

 mowiczii, Tilia japonica, Acer capillipes, A. 

 nikkoense, A. Miyabei, and A. diabolicum, Car- 

 pinus cordata, J uniperusrigida,Ostry a japonica, 

 Rhododendron Kaempferi, R. japonicum, R. 

 rhombicum and several other trees and 

 shrubs principally from the northern island 

 which had escaped the attention of earlier 

 travelers in Japan in search of the seeds of na- 

 tive plants. In the autumn of 1905 Mr. J. G. 

 Jack of the Arboretum staff passed a few 

 months in eastern Asia and, although he was 

 only a short time in Korea, made a collection 

 of seeds there and in northern China from 

 which several plants of interest and beauty 

 entirely new to cultivation were raised,' in- 

 cluding Rhododendron poukhanense, Indigo- 

 fera Kirilowii, Evodia Daniellii, Quercus 

 aliena, Diervilla florida venusta, Periploaca 

 sepium, and Rosa Jackii. 



The Arboretum endeavors to increase the 

 knowledge of trees by arranging the living 



Slants in what may be described as a Tree 

 luseum. This Museum, which now contains 

 one of the largest collections of trees and 

 shrubs of the Northern Hemisphere in the 

 world, occuDies two hundred and twenty 



Cotoneaster hupehensis which Prof. Sargent considers to be the best of all the shrubs introduced by 

 Wilson for New England. Deciduous, laden with white flowers in spring 



acres of hill, valley and meadow contributed 

 for the purpose by the University and in 

 small part by the City of Boston. Part 

 of this land is occupied by good native 

 Oak woods and by a fine grove of Hemlock 

 trees which cover the steep slopes of what 

 is called Hemlock Hill, the crowning feature 

 of the Arboretum. On the remainder of the 

 ground the trees have been arranged in fa- 

 mily groups and in botanical sequence, all the 

 species of each genus being together. In 

 the case of important native trees several in- 

 dividuals have been planted comparatively 

 near together with a single individual of the 

 species sufficiently far from any other tree to 

 make possible its free and full development. 

 For the trees of other countries only space 

 has been found for a single individual of 

 each. Hardy shrubs are arranged in parallel 

 beds on the only piece of level ground in the 

 Arboretum near the Forest Hills entrance. 

 This arrangement has been adopted that stu- 

 dents who want to see and compare the 

 species of a genus of hardy shrubs can do so 

 easily and in a short time. Everywhere 

 else in the arboretum the attempt has been 

 made to so group the trees and shrubs that 

 the natural features of the place may be pre- 

 served, and that, although a person going 

 along the drives can see close to the road a 

 representative of every genus of trees in the 

 Arboretum, he can do so without being unpleas- 

 antly impressed with the idea that he is in a sys- 

 tematically arranged botanical garden. A 

 visitor, however, who sees only what can be 

 seen from the drives gets little idea of this 

 museum and its collections which must be 

 studied from the grass-covered paths which 

 lead the student to all the groups and to the 

 principal points of interest and beauty. 



More important for the increase of knowl- 

 edge than the cultivation and convenient ar- 

 rangement of living plants is the work which 

 is carried on in the laboratories of the Arbor- 

 etum, for comparatively few persons can 

 study and enjoy these growing plants; but 

 from the laboratories material and informa- 

 tion reach far beyond the boundaries of 

 the United States. There are two depart- 

 ments of these laboratories, first the nurseries 

 and second the herbarium and library. In 



