My attention is called to an objection offered in your issue of 20th inst., to the plan for the improvement of the Back Bay now before the Boston City Council, and which, if the writer’s assumptions were accepted, might stir up a strong property interest against it, and defeat the pending appropriation. As I had not thought it necessary to anticipate this objection in my report on the subject, quoted by the writer, you will kindly allow me to explain my neglect to do so.

The objection is that there must be a constant rapid deposit of filthy silt in the proposed Back-Bay basin, from the water supplied to it out of Charles River; that this silt will foul the shores, and fill up the channel from which it must be removed at frequent intervals by a very costly process and with great offence to all living in the vicinity. The objection is unsound for the following reasons:

In summer all the supply required from the Charles may be let in within an hour before and after high-water, and may be all drawn from within three feet of the surface. At and near the turn of flood, the river is without perceptible current, and the water within three feet or more of the surface carries no silting matter. I have observed it frequently, when, so far as the eye could detect, it was perfectly clear.

When, under extraordinary circumstances, the water is unusually turbid, it will be unnecessary to let it into the basin. The gates may be always [482]

View of Back Bay Fens, c. 1896

But it is urged that as population increases on its banks, the river will be increasingly dirty. Both the present city engineer and his predecessor in office, and the city superintendent of sewers, are of a different opinion. The completion of works now in progress is expected to relieve the river of Boston sewage; and, looking further ahead and beyond Boston, it is likely that other expedients will in time be adopted for maintaining it in tolerable cleanliness. In no probable event is it to be anticipated that the annual deposit of silt within the basin from tidal water will be more than a mere film, or that it will be offensive.

To obtain satisfactory results upon the Back Bay without excessive expense, is a complicated problem. I acknowledge especially a certain degree of uncertainty as to what may be accomplished under the novel conditions proposed for the low ground, and I should be grateful for advice upon this point from any of your sea-coast readers, who may have had experience of approximately similar conditions. The descriptive terms of our language applicable to land subject to occasional overflow from the sea are unfortunately limited, and for want of better I spoke of that proposed to be formed in the Back-Bay as marshy and fenny. Your contributor’s second objection to the commissioners’ [483] plan is based, however, upon a more restricted use of these terms than I had supposed to be necessary. There are many sea-coast nooks of Massachusetts Bay with wooded banks into which the tide occasionally rises, and which are commonly spoken of by country people as marshy, very different in character and appealing in a very different way to the imagination from the marsh which he assumes that I have had in view.

As to his somewhat authoritative assumption of the “unloveliness” of all possible marsh detail under the circumstances, you will pardon me for repeating the familiar words of the poet:—

“Dear marshes! Vain to him the gift of sight,
Who cannot in their various incomes share.”

Enclosed is a statement of the terms recommended to be adopted for an arrangment between the city and Harvard College as to the Arboretum. As explanatory of the proposition I submit the following observations.

Regarding the Arboretum as a public pleasure ground, there would under the proposed arrangment be a space of 125 acres to be planted and maintained partly in the form of natural woods, (the trees standing for the most part closely or in groups and completely shading the ground), and partly, as an open grove, (much as the majority of trees stand at present on the Common). Besides this planted space there would be about 11 acres of ground kept mainly clear of trees in order to give the public the benefit of distant views from the heights, and an additional open space of five acres of turf at all suitable times available as a play ground for children.

There would be a total space of 145 acres of ground to be used by the public, precisely as well regulated and much frequented public parks are commonly used, no restrictions or regulations being necessary that are not in force on the Central Park, or the Park of Monceau (St James’s Park).

The Arboretum is to be open daily to the public from sunrise to sunset, except that if it shall at any time hereafter be found desirable to avoid the disturbance of necessary operations on the ground or of instructions to students it may be closed upon due public notice until 10 in the morning.

There will be ten acres of ground (not included in the 150 acres above described) which the college is to be permitted to occupy with special collections of plants, nursery and propagating gardens and by such buildings for administration and instruction as may be required, the use of which reserved ground will be subject to regulation by the college.

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This being the scheme to carry it out, the city is to provide less than a fourth of the land to make and maintain a public drive and walk leading through it, to protect the property and preserve order and decorum in its use and to supply water necessary to keep down dust and water the plants.

The college is to supply three fourths of the land required, to establish and maintain the plantations and keep the entire grounds in good order, without expense to the city.

Briefly the city has the opportunity of acquiring a public ground of a distinct, interesting and valuable character promising to be the best of its kind in the world, which will cost it neither for construction nor for maintenance more than a quarter as much as it would without the cooperation of the college.

The college gains the opportunity of making its arboretum more complete and more generally useful to the public than would otherwise be practicable. I know of nothing else it has to gain and in my efforts to bring about the result proposed, I have nothing else in view.

Accompanying letter to Dalton 5 May ’80.

I recommend the following as terms of an arrangement between the City of Boston and Harvard College for establishing and maintaining the proposed arboretum.

1.  The land proposed to be used for the Arboretum to be provided as contemplated in the act of the legislature.

2.  The college to hold the right to appropriate certain areas, not exceeding altogether ten acres in extent for administrative and special purposes bearing upon the object of the Arboretum as a scientific institution, including sites for museums, lecture rooms and nurseries.

3  The college to establish and maintain the plantations of the Arboretum, including a collection of trees and shrubs suitably classified and labelled adapted to the advancement of the science of Botany and arboriculture and the instruction of the public.

4  The city to provide the land proposed to be added to the Arboretum (as shown in the map attached to the Fifth Annual Report of the Park Commissioners); to make and maintain a road and walk on or near the line proposed for a road in said map; to take all measures necessary to the protection of the property and to preserve order and decorum in the use of it by the public and to supply the water required for keeping down dust and watering plants.

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Plan of Proposed Arnold Arboretum 1879
Showing five-acre play area next to Centre Street and adjacent to Adams Nervine Asylum, and open area on hilltop with carriage concourse southeast of play area

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5 The Arboretum to be open to the public from sun rise to sunset, daily, but the college to hold the right, if it shall hereafter be found necessary for efficient and economical administration or to secure the best use of the ground for purposes of science and instruction, to its exclusive use until ten o’clock in the morning.

6 Whenever the Arboretum is open, the public to have free access to all its parts (except the reservations proposed in ¶ 7.) with only such limitations, commonly adopted on well-kept public grounds which are largely used, as may be found necessary to prevent injury to the trees and plants.