Science In The Pleasure Ground

by Ida Hay

One of Boston's most beautiful and treasured outdoor spaces, the Arnold Arboretum is a living museum of trees and shrubs, a public park, and a laboratory for scientific investigation. The unique, intricate garden is admired worldwide as a model for naturalistic landscape architecture. In this generously illustrated volume, Ida Hay provides the first comprehensive history of the Arboretum's pioneering role and contemporary significance in successfully blending scientific endeavors with public recreation and aesthetic display. Her engaging narrative focuses on the lives, contributions, and interrelationships of those who founded and developed the Arboretum, beginning with the grant of land in Jamaica Plain to Harvard University by Benjamin Bussey and the endowment provided by James Arnold. These founding events are set against the background of scientific developments in the biological sciences and popular interest in horticulture and naturalistic landscape design in early nineteenth-cen