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From Medieval Park to Modern Arboretum: The Arnold Arboretum and its Historic Background In celebrating a hundred years of growth of an institution such as the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University primarily devoted to the cultivation and study of trees, it is natural even if trite to compare such an institution to a tree itself, above all to such an impressive sturdy long-lived tree as an oak, and then to seek analogies of development, elaborating the simile in a manner worthy of an old New England preacher somewhat like Father Mapple of Melville’s Moby Dick. Thus tree-like, one might say, the Arnold Arboretum thrusts its roots deep into good hard earth such as solid Boston and Cambridge banking accounts provide, pushes out its dollar-fed branches slowly but strongly in many directions to resist wind and tem- pest, i.e. depressions, slumps, inflations, lawsuits, hurricanes and the like, towers massively above other institutions of more recent sprouting and displays its abundant foliage, both actual and figurative, for all to admire. Such eloquent comparisons can, however, be carried too far. The Arnold Arboretum’s publi- cations appreciated by botanists the world over may indeed be likened to the fruit of our imagined tree but, unfortunately for this nice simile, the fruit of an oak is most appreciated by crows and swine! Nevertheless, the simile has its value. An individual oak, while possessing its own particular characteristics as an individual, grows mainly the way it does because of events which happened even before it started as an acorn, sometimes very long before that. The Arnold Arboretum during its hundred years of growth has certainly been shaped by influences going back some two hundred or more years earlier. Hence, I have thought fit here not to concentrate on this New England institution in its present laudable state but instead to indicate its Old England antecedents by showing how the modern arboretum, 173 174 so well exemplified by the Arnold Arboretum, has developed from the medieval English deer park, by way of the 18th- century landscaped park, through the interaction of anxiety over timber shortage and of feeling for landscape, which to- gether led to an interest in trees for their aesthetic and scien- tific value as well as for their economic use. These provide the background to the development of the important features which, thanks to the driving power, the wisdom and the wealth of Charles Sprague Sargent, have come especially to distin- guish the Arnold Arboretum. James Arnold and The Founding of The Arnold Arboretum A little over a hundred years ago various worthy citizens of Boston and members of Harvard University learned that the trustees of the estate of the late James Arnold, merchant of New Bedford, Massachusetts, had proposed to found an arboretum for Harvard University out of the money bequeathed by him ’for the promotion of Agricultural or Horticultural Im- provements’. Arnold, who died in 1863 at the age of 87, was a formidable man of strong physique and domineering charac- ter, high intellectual and administrative ability, and shrewd business sagacity. He was noted, according to a contemporary eulogist, the Rev. J. W. Potter, for ’his systematic industry, his indomitable energy and will, his very positive opinions and habit of very positive utterance’, and so he became one of ’that successful and hi~h-mincjPrl rana nf men xx~hn s>, the ~~;;t · ^-~,~ of the present [i.e. 19th] century were the merchant princes of New Bedford’. Extensive philanthropic interests, perhaps derived from his Quaker upbringing, tempered his possibly ruthless efficiency. He made his large garden at New Bedford open to all, so that it became a place of public resort and interest, as has the Arnold Arboretum commemorating him, and this garden was cele- brated enough in 1844 for the landscape gardener, A. J. Down- ing, to request a sketch of it. Arnold tragically lost his wife, daughter and sister in quick succession and, having devoted the last 25 years of his long life mostly to charitable activities, he bequeathed his money for their continuation. The foundation of a public arboretum was among his intentions, according to his trustee, George B. Emerson, although not explicitly men- tioned in his will. Apparently Arnold had made much of his vast fortune out of the destruction of the timberland of Michi- gan. By a twist of circumstances, his name for a century now 175 has been associated with an institution concerned for the pres- ervation of trees. Emerson and his fellow-trustee, John James Dixwell, were certainly much interested in trees, the one as a botanist, the other as a planter; and if, as we must assume, Arnold really wished to found an arboretum, he chose his trustees wisely. The Harvard professor, Asa Gray, had also advocated the pro- vision of an arboretum ’if every means for its support were to be had’. Eventually, in March 1872, the trustees agreed to transfer to Harvard University the Arnold fund for ’the estab- lishment and support of an Arboretum to be called the Arnold Arboretum’. Fifty years later, in 1922, the man who converted their good intentions into solid achievement, Charles Sprague Sargent, wrote in the Arboretum’s Journal that ’the prospect of being able to establish a useful institution would not have been encouraging, if the men interested in it had had at that time as much knowledge as hope and enthusiasm. For it is safe to say that not one of them had an idea of what an Arboretum might be, or what it was going to cost in time and money to carry out the provisions of the indenture’. Sargent as director had to learn all that the hard way. The word ’Arboretum’ was then probably an unfamiliar one in New England. To Boston businessmen it may even have sounded like an exotic disease. However, Webster’s Dictionary of 1865 would have re-assured them by its entry: ’Ar’bo-re’- tum. A place in a park, nursery, etc. in which a collection of trees consisting of one of each kind is cultivated’. That sounds safely humble, innocuous and inexpensive. Trees look after themselves and the upkeep of an arboretum should thus be almost nominal, or so it might have been hoped. However, Arnold’s trustees had more ambitious aims. The deed of foundation stated that the Arnold Arboretum ’shall contain, as far as is practicable, all the trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants, either indigenous or exotic, which can be raised in the open air at the said West Roxbury ... each specimen thereof shall be distinctly labelled, and to have the support of a professor, to be called the Arnold Professor, who shall have the care and management of the said Arboretum’. All this was to come out of less than $3,000 a year! Good Bostonians, the trustees evi- dently looked for a good return on their money. Arnold’s trustees can be readily excused for their supposed ignorance about the functions and potentialities and cost of an arboretum. Founding an arboretum then was a new Ameri- 176 I can activity, almost an un-American activity, but one made ac- ceptable, respectable and indeed desirable by such worthy New England families as the Hunnewells and the Sargents. It was an imported concept. The reason is really quite simple. Trees, like clean water and clean air, are taken for granted until almost lost. The concept of an arboretum, which has reached its highest and most elaborate development here at the Arnold Arboretum, took shape outside America at a time when there were too many trees in New England and too few in Old En- gland, increasingly destroyed in the one, increasingly planted in the other. Destruction of English Woodlands in 16th and 17th Centuries and Consequent Timber Shortage The trees of England, down to the reign of Henry VIII, i.e. 1509-1547, supplied timber enough for the country’s needs. Thereafter, with vastly increased consumption for gun-founding and ship-building, wherein oaks had so important a part, trees were cut down more rapidly than they were replaced. During the reigns of Henry’s successors and especially during the English Civil War and the subsequent Commonwealth of 1649-1658, the pace of destruction quickened, as the demands for wood for building and domestic and industrial fuel rose, and there resulted a dangerous shortage of the right kind of home-grown timber. According to Stapledon (1935), the state ~ forests in 1508 were asscaaeu d.& Iiaving about 124,000 trees fit for naval use but in 1707 there were only about 12,500 trees available to meet needs which had grown so much greater. Timber shortage and inability to control dry rot in ships could then easily affect the balance of power for maritime nations (cf. Albion, 1926; Ramsbottom, 1937). In 17th- and 18th- century England they became matters of grave concern. De- serted by human beings for a hundred years, England would become as covered with trees as are the farms of New England left derelict for the last century. This has been indicated by the Broadbalk Wilderness experiment at the Rothamsted Ex- perimental Station, Hertfordshire; here an area of cornfield left completely untouched since 1882 has now become a ma- ture woodland of oak, ash, sycamore and hawthorn with some trees over 60 feet high. To be undisturbed, however, has been the fate of very little woodland in Britain and Ireland for many many years. King Henry VIII was not only interested in chop- ping off the heads of his discarded wives and chancellors.

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