ce-rows of the Rumsey farm,
and from it the stumps of the original forest trees had to be removed
before the University was opened. For many years it was, to all intents,
a farm lot upon which a few scattered buildings were to be seen. The
early Regents and Faculty were necessarily occupied with pressing
practical problems, and the first steps toward rendering the Campus more
attractive were very casual and ineffective. The sum of $200 was given
Dr. Houghton for the planting of trees in 1840 but action was delayed
because of Pat Kelly's wheat, and when eventually the trees were
planted--tradition has it they were locusts--they were soon destroyed by
insects. Andrew D. White describes the Campus when he came to the
University in 1857 as "unkempt and wretched. Throughout its whole space
there were not more than a score of trees outside the building sites
allotted to professors; unsightly plank walks connected the buildings,
and in every direction were meandering paths, which in dry weather were
dusty and in wet weather muddy."

Yet as early as 1847 the forlorn condition of the Campus began to be
officially noticed; appropriations of small sums were made from time to
time for trees and shrubs and a scheme for the laying out of avenues and
walks and the planting of groups of trees was adopted. Unfortunately,
the trees came before the walks, and as they were all of quick-growing
varieties the effort did not go far. Nevertheless a vision of the
traditional academic grove appeared in the report of the visiting
Committee of that year, which recommended that "regard should be had, in
making the selection, to the cleanliness, desirability, symmetry, and
beauty of foliage of the trees to be planted" and observed that "the
highway of thought, and intellectual development and progress, much of
which is parched and rugged, should, as far as may be, be refreshed with
fountains and strewn with flowers." Truly, an alluring picture! The
Faculty, however, somewhat more practical, insisted on walks, protesting
that they were "obliged before clear day to wend their way to their
recitations through darkness and mud." A similar plan was undertaken in
1854 when citizens, students, and Faculty all joined in the work, the
citizens to set out a row of trees on the farther side of the streets
outside the Campus, while the students and Faculty were to do the same
on the Campus side. Five hundred trees were thus set out within the
grounds while an e