ABSTRACT
By 600 bc, Babylon was beautified by its Hanging Gardens. By the twelfth century, trees lined the outsides of cathedrals. In the early 1800s, Europeans built public parks, a movement that reached the United States in the mid-1800s. In 1857, Frederick Law Olmsted, the father of park design, became the superintendent of New York City’s Central Park. Olmsted also designed the gardens and grounds of the Biltmore estate in North Carolina. The gardens, designed in an English-manor style, are located close to the mansion but still afford a majestic view of the surrounding forests and mountains. On the estate’s grounds, Olmsted, with the assistance of Gifford Pinchot, designed a 250-acre recreation area within over 100,000 reforested acres. A forestry school was established near the Biltmore estate. Eugene, Oregon, instituted a tree-planting and maintenance program in 1963. Today most large cities have an urban forestry program, usually located in the roadway-appearance section of the street department. Urban foresters prune and remove trees from public rights-of-way and clear nuisance vegetation from roadsides.
