PARK AND CEMRTERY 
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PANORAMA OF ARNOLD ARBORETUM. — FRUTICETUM IN THE VALLEY. 
The Arnold Arboretum, Boston, Mass. 
A GENERAL VIEW. 
The Arnold Arboretum is situated in Jamaica Plain, 
Boston, Mass. It is four miles from the Common- 
wealth building. As an arboretum it is virtually the 
only one in the United States and the best arranged 
and largest in the universe. Mr. James Arnold, a New 
Bedford merchant, made a bequest of $100,000 and 
named George B. Emerson as one of the trustees. 
Mr. Emerson is well known by his report upon the 
trees of Massachusetts, published first by tbe Massa- 
chusetts State Agricultural Society and since by 
a New York publishing firm. Largely through Em- 
erson’s influence, the funds made available by Mr. 
Arnold’s bequest were utilized to establish an arbo- 
retum in connection with and as a part of Harvard 
University. Professor Charles S. Sargent, who hith- 
erto had charge of the Cambridge Botanic Garden, 
was appointed to the chair of arboriculture. 
Some 124 acres were appropriated from the Bussey 
Institute property. In 1870, 98.6 acres were added. 
In 1882 an agreement was concluded between the 
Eellows of Harvard College and the City of Bos- 
ton whereby the city received control of the Arbore- 
tum land and then leased it back to the College cor- 
poration for 999 years and agreed to construct and 
maintain the drives and paths, and police the property. 
The Eellows of Harvard College agreed to develop and 
maintain all the remaining area within the Arboretum 
and allow the public free use of the domains. Alto- 
gether it places the Arboretum upon a basis about as 
permanent as human effort can devise. The city has 
included the Arboretum as a part of its system of 
parks, and as such it is skirted by the Arborway con- 
necting Jamaica and Eranklin Parks. After the West 
Roxbury Parkway is completed Stony Brook Reser- 
vation will be connected with the Arboretum and by 
the Arboretum with the urban sections of the Boston 
Park System. 
Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted designed the estate, 
which embraces three high hills and the intervening 
valleys, several small ledgy knolls, a wide tract of 
meadow land, and undulated areas. 
Geologically the elevated portions are drumlins of 
sand and gravel or outcropping ledges of Roxbury 
pudding stone ; the lower areas are richer deposits of 
alluvial with deep beds of peat in the meadow land. 
The soil is generally a poor gravel, with a surface 
stratum of loam from six to eighteen inches in depth. 
A brook draining part of and having its source in the 
West Roxbury district on the west enters the Ar- 
boretum near the Walter street entrance and flows 
eastward through a beautiful valley, washing the base 
of Hemlock Hill on its way, and leaves near the South 
street entrance. 
The natural growth within the area is composed of 
a few small and disconnected tracts of wood composed 
mainly of deciduous trees ; a magnificent growth of 
hemlocks on the north declivity of a rocky hillside, and 
considerable copse. About one-balf of the entire area 
of the Arboretum is in turf located east of the Mu- 
seum, on the north slope of Overlook Hill and upon 
virtually the whole of Peters’ Hill. From Overlook 
Hill the southern horizon is defined by the Blue Hill 
range of Milton ; to the eastward the city of Boston, 
Dorchester Bay and Boston Harbor compose the pan- 
orama ; Malden and, on bright days, the lower hills 
of New Hampshire to the northward and a rural and 
semi-urban scene are in the western view. 
The interior views of the Arboretum constitute ex- 
cellent foregrounds to the distant prospects. The 
fruticetum on the one side ; the evergreen vale and 
the rich woods on the west, and Hemlock Hill and 
mountain laurel slope on another are beautiful feat- 
ures within the bounds of the domain. Perhaps the 
largest collection of lilacs in America is in the Ar- 
boretum. They border about 125 feet of the main 
drive, and in June their beauty is only exceeded by 
their pleasant odor. 
Supplementing these features are the plants consti- 
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