The Cross-Cultural Experience of Chen Huanyong

Transplanting Botany to China: The Cross-Cultural Experience of Chen Huanyong William j. Haas After studying at the Arnold Arboretum, a Chinese student returns to his homeland, becoming a leader in botanical work Chen Huanyong (Woon-Young Chun/1 came ern Asia and northeastern North America to Boston in the autumn of 1915 to study at were closely related. This significantly im- the Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University’s plied that the species of one region might museum of living trees. The arboretum, lo- grow well in the other. While Gray’s work cated on a 265-acre site in Jamaica Plain, provided theoretical underpinning for Massachusetts, about five miles from the Sargent’s horticultural interest in East Asia, center of Boston, was set up in 1872 with it was the flourishing of seeds sent to Sargent funding from the trust created by the legacy by Emil Bretschneider (1833-1901), a Russian of New Bedford merchant James Arnold. A physician in Beijing, which gave Sargent the condition of the gift was that the university practical demonstration that plants collected "establish and support an Arboretum ...* in China would be viable in America.3 which shall contain as far as is practicable, all Sargent began slowly to collect Chinese the trees ... either indigenous or exotic, species; he acquired specimens through Euro- which can be raised in the open air...."Z pean institutions and through a trip of his Trees from Asia were heavily represented at own to China. In 1907 he hired Ernest H. the arboretum, and trees of Chinese origin Wilson (1876-1930) from the British horti- thrived there. The new Chinese student cultural firm Veitch & Sons, to collect for the flourished at the arboretum also. Freshly arboretum in western China. These fabulous graduated from the New York State School of collections from western China made him Forestry at Syracuse University, Chen had and the arboretum world-famous. Later, already spent five years in the United States Sargent obtained the services of the collector since leaving his native Shanghai. Now he and ethnologist Joseph F. C. Rock (1884-- would spend four more years in the United 1962).4 The arboretum’s collections of plants States, doing graduate work among the trees from China increased rapidly.5 But it was not at the arboretum. just acquisition of Chinese collections that By the time Chen arrived in 1915, Charles made the arboretum an important center. Sprague Sargent (1841-1927), director of the The study of these collections, especially by arboretum from 1873 until his death, had es- Alfred Rehder (1863-1949), assistant at and tablished the Arnold Arboretum as a center later curator of the arboretum’s herbarium, for the study of Chinese trees. Sargent’s in- also contributed to knowledge of the flora of terest in East Asian species was inspired by China. Asa Gray’s observation that the floras of east- Just as Americans had to travel to European 10 herbaria to study American plants, Chinese Arnold Arboretum botanists like John G. had to come to American and European insti- Jack (1896-1935), an assistant professor of tutions to study Chinese plants. Unless they dendrology (the study of trees) made Hillcrest used the research collections in Western a center for diffusing horticultural knowl- herbaria, Chinese botanists would have had edge by giving lectures there during the to begin work on the flora of their country summer. It was probably on these occasions from scratch. The arboretum had the strong- that Jack developed a friendship with his est collections of Chinese trees in the world. future protege, Chen.9 The friendship must Chen came to Harvard specifically to use that have been heightened by mutual interest in material, explaining that "it would take me a China’s flora; Jack had gone to China in 1905 lifetime of travel to study what I can find out at his own expense to collect specimens for here about Chinese trees in a few years."6 the Arnold Arboretum. 10 Chen’s commitment to forestry as a career Education in the United States, 1909-1919 deepened after his first summer at Hillcrest. It was Marion Case of Weston, Massachu- Chinese students with an ardent desire to setts, who first alerted Chen to the impor- strengthen their country often claimed that tance of the Arnold Arboretum. In 1909, the subject they studied was the one most Case, daughter of a Providence, Rhode Island, crucial to China’s future. In the January 19111 merchant, used land she had inherited to issue of the Chinese Students’ Monthly, the start a small institution in Weston for experi- organ of the Chinese Students’ Alliance, mentation in farming and education. Known Chen explained why "Forestry in China" was as Hillcrest Gardens, it is now the Case Es- important. He vividly described the cancer of tates of the Arnold Arboretum. Chen had deforestation, a scourge which contributed to come from Shanghai to the United States in flood, famine, and unfavorable climate. 1909 and enrolled in courses in forestry and China was once an Eden of luxuriant forests entomology at the Massachusetts Agricul- and crystal streams, but indiscriminate re- tural College in Amherst. In 1910, Case hired moval of trees had laid bare entire provinces. him as her summer assistant. For five sum- Fertile topsoil had been washed from hill- mers between 1910 and 1919, Chen helped sides and carried to the sea. Chen called for Case manage and teach the young boys em- education as the antidote to "the poison of ployed at Hillcrest. The boys liked Chen popular ignorance." Schools should be estab- because, in her view, the "quiet courteous lished to train men for a forest service. Using ways he had inherited from his Spanish the advantages of Western science, a govern- mother appealed to them."7 ment bureau cooperating with the people Chen’s success in the Hillcrest job may could succeed in reforestation. Chinese stu- have been as much due to his father’s influ- dents should arouse national interest in a ence as to his mother’s. Chen’s parents proba- movement for reforestation.ll bly met while his father was in Cuba as a It was an exciting time for Chinese stu- diplomatic representative of the Qing court. dents everywhere. In October 1911, the Xin- The couple had fourteen children; Chen, the hai revolution overthrew the Qing dynasty; thirteenth, was born in Hong Kong in 1890. by 1912 there was a new Chinese republic. Some time later, the family moved to Shang- Chen’s ambition in forestry required more hai, where Chen’s father taught English at the specialized training. In 1912 he transferred Thomas Hanbury School, a boys’ school from the Massachusetts Agricultural College named after the British businessman who to the New York State School of Forestry at financed it. Chen’s summer work at Hillcrest Syracuse University. The school had excel- was similar to what his father did towards the lent facilities, including a forestry summer end of his career.8 camp in the Catskill Mountains, which Chen 11I attended in 1914.12 "unbroken save by the murmur of low-dron- While completing his undergraduate training prayers and the tinkles of temple bells."14 ing at Syracuse, Chen became active in the In "Bitter Strength"-a translation of the Chinese Students’ Alliance, which had chap- word coolie [kuli]-Chen used fiction to cry ters throughout the United States. Chen was out against Westerners’ mistreatment of the a delegate to the alliance’s ninth annual con- Chinese. A rickshaw coolie in the British ference, held at Cornell University in Ithaca colony of Hong Kong spends a day striving to during the last week of August 1913. Dele- earn money for his family. By day’s end, the gates participated in vocational conferences, weakened coolie has obtained just the athletics, literary events, entertainments, a amount he needs to bring home to his aged banquet, a picnic, and elections; Chen was mother. A British infantryman demands to be elected to the Chinese Students’ Monthly’s taken to the barracks where he is late for his English Editorial Board. Delegates also dem- return. The coolie pleads exhaustion, but the onstrated their concern with China’s interna- half-drunk soldier tells him to "run like the tional relations. There was anxiety in China devil or have his head broken." On the way, because the "consortium," an international the coolie’s muscles fail and he drops the cart. banking syndicate, was forcing loans on Cursing, the infantryman’s "right hand shot China and monopolizing its loan business. In out, and the dirk sank deeply into the helpless 1910, the consortium was a four-power affair, body." The coolie’s corpse is disposed of in Britain, France, Germany, and the United the waters off the bund.’s States; in 1912, six-power: Japan and Russia After graduating the forestry school at were added. At Ithaca, students’ alliance Syracuse in 1915, Chen enrolled at Harvard’s delegates staged a mock parliament, a scaled- Bussey Institution for Research in Applied down version of the Chinese house of repre- Biology. Rather than become a forester, he sentatives in session. The main business was was going to become a dendrologist. The an impeachment hearing for the premier be- Arnold Arboretum did not officially offer cause he had concluded the "Five Power instruction, but students could arrange to loan."’3 take courses with John Jack and work at the Over the next year Chen revealed growing arboretum by registering at the Bussey. That distress over the vagaries of cross-cultural year, another Chinese student, Qian Songshu experience and contact.

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