Arnold Arboretum, Jamaica Plain, MA

The successes of Sargent's directorship were due in part to his ability to raise the funds required to implement his plans and in part to a creative lease agreement that was forged between the City of Boston and Harvard in 1882. According to the terms of the thousand-year lease, the Harvard-owned land on which the Arnold Arboretum was established became part of the city park system, but control of the collections continued to reside with the Arboretum staff. The city was to maintain the perimeter walls, gates, and roadway system and provide police surveillance, while the Arboretum agreed to keep the grounds open to the general public, free of charge, from sunrise to sunset every day of the year. As a result of this unique arrangement the Arboretum became part of the famous "Emerald Necklace," the 7-mile-long network of parks and parkways that Frederick Law Olmsted laid out for the Boston Parks Department between 1878 and 1892. Arnold Arboretum

The Arnold Arboretum occupies 265 acres (107 hectares) of land in the Jamaica Plain section of Boston. It is administered as an allied institution within the central administration of Harvard University. As of January 2000, the living collections consisted of some 7,082 accessioned plants representing 4,544 botanical and horticultural taxa, with particular emphasis on the woody species of North America and eastern Asia....... In addition to its living collections the Arboretum holds a herbarium collection in excess of 5 million specimens and library holdings in excess of 40,000 volumes, some of which are located in Jamaica Plain and some in Cambridge at the Harvard University Herbaria. The Arboretum also maintains an extensive photographic archive in Jamaica Plain, along with archival collections relating to its own history and to the history of botany and horticulture in North America.