Cornell Plantations - History

History

Prior to the founding of Cornell University, Ezra Cornell had a large farm on the East Hill above Ithaca, New York. As part of locating New York State's land-grant college in Ithaca, Cornell offered to donate the farm for use as a campus. In 1862, Cornell's first president, Andrew Dickson White, wrote a colleague that a great university should include a botanical garden: “It must have the best of Libraries – collections in different departments – Laboratory – Observatory – Botanical Garden perhaps…” At the university's opening ceremony in 1868, Louis Agassiz, an internationally-known naturalist, remarked that no other area could compete with Cornell's surroundings in the opportunities offered for the study of natural history. From its inception, Cornell formed a reputation for creative means of research into the natural sciences, including the establishment of the pioneering College of Agriculture.

When the university built its first women's dormitory in 1875, it included a conservatory for growing plants and a specimen tree collection. Separately, the College of Veterinary Medicine started a specialized garden of plants that are poisonous to livestock. Cornell's farm included two deep gorges which flanked both sides of the early campus, and as the campus developed the gorges remained undeveloped and filled with native plants and wildlife. These became the start of the on-campus gardens and arboretum. A goal of creating an explicit arboretum was proposed in various university reports to trustees and other publications in 1877, 1883, 1908, and 1914.

Cornell's acquisition of off-campus forest land dates to 1898 and the founding of the New York State College of Forestry, which was the first forestry college in North America. As a part of establishing that school, Cornell acquired a demonstration forest near Saranac Lake in the Adirondack Mountains. The harvesting of trees from that forest drew heated opposition from neighboring land owners. Although political opposition caused Cornell to transfer the forest lands under the "forever wild" protection of the Adirondack Forest Preserve and to transfer Cornell's forestry education programs to its College of Agriculture, Cornell continued to acquire forest land remote from its main campus. In 1935, the decision to create an arboretum was finally made and the university formally established a Cornell Arboretum as a separate department. From 1935 to 1940, the federal government's Civilian Conservation Corps Camp SP 48 devoted 170 to 200 workers to planting trees, constructing dikes, and building trails in order to develop the Arboretum.

In 1944, Liberty Hyde Bailey, the Dean,emeritus, of the College of Agriculture and a horticulturalist highly regarded around the world, proposed the present name "Cornell Plantations" for an expanded department in a report that reflected the work of a number of botany and horticulture professors. By 1948, the Plantations numbered 1,000 acres (400 ha) and the first Director was named, John F. Cornman. During a 1949 broadcast on widely-heard radio station WGY, Cornell emeritus professor Bristow Adams reflected upon the now five-year-old Plantations, and stated that the relationship between humans and things that grow were of utmost importance and that gardens, forests, and parks were everlasting collections that "have the care and trusteeships of generation after generation."

In the mid 1960s, the sculpture garden was constructed in the middle of the Arboretum as a project of the College of Architecture Art and Planning. By 1965, the Plantations consisted of 1,500 acres (610 ha). By 1970, the university was issuing a publication called The Cornell Plantations, which contained general articles on nature and environmental topics. Beginning in the early 1970s, the Arboretum was upgraded with new roads and plantings funded by major gifts from oil industry figure Floyd R. Newman, and in 1982 the Arboretum was formally named in his honor (as were several other buildings and facilities at Cornell over the years).

During the 1980s, the Plantations experienced people stealing pines and firs for Christmas trees, with in some cases trees being taken that were worth several thousand dollars. A successful countermeasure created by Gerardo Sciarra at the Plantations was covering the trees with a harmless yet visually unpleasant "Ugly Mix" spray that included hydrated limestone, an anti-desiccant, and water. The technique was subsequently recommended to others worried about tree theft. In 2009, the Plantations suffered from a series of thefts of new or rare plants. A director at the Plantations, which had no security in place, said that the thieves must have been experienced horticulturalists and that the loss of research and species had been a demoralizing experience.

At the start of the 21st century, the Plantations embarked on a construction program which included: Arboretum Center (2000), Horticultural Center (2001), Mullestein Winter Garden (2002), Ramin Administration Building (2003), Rowley Carpenter Shop (2004), Plant Production Facility (2007), and Lewis Education Center (2008). The decade of building and restoration culminated with the October 28, 2010, dedication of the new $7.5 million Brian C. Nevin Welcome Center. Five years in the designing and building, the new facility was built to LEED gold standards and won a 2010 Award of Excellence from Canadian Architect magazine.