University of Virginia Library

Trees Not Unloved

By Steve Grlmwood
Cavalier Daily Staff Writer

Photo By Andy Kline

Buildings and Grounds has recently
obtained a new Landscape
Supervisor, Mr. Steward, who is in
charge of taking care of the
University's trees, along with various
other responsibilities. He works
in conjunction with the Arboretum
Committee, who decide which trees
are to be removed and with what
they are replaced. No live trees are
ever removed, and ninety per cent
of the time they are replaced with
another of the same type. The
Committee has no favorite tree,
being mainly interested in providing
the University community and our
numerous tourists with a wide
variety of foliage.

There has lately been, most
noticeably from the Liquifactionist
Party, a cry for the resumption of
the labeling of trees on the
Grounds. Mr. Taylor said that there
are no plans for labeling in the near
future. A plan of this nature was
implemented a few years ago, but
only applied to unusual or distinctive
trees, and to specimens of
major varieties. There has never
been, and probably never will be, a
plan to label every tree under the
protection of the University.

One of the trees that fits the
requirements for labeling is the
McGuffey Ash, the large and
beautiful tree located behind Pavilion
IX. Planted in the early 1820's,
it was carefully nurtured by Rev.
William H. McGuffey, professor of
moral philosophy and famous for
his readers, after he joined the
faculty in 1846.

In the 1890's its life was
threatened by a rapidly approaching
pipe line ditch. After all formal
protests failed, a determined faculty
wife took her knitting and
rocking chair to the ditch line and
sat for three days in a row until the
Board of Visitors called off the
ditch-digging project.

About 30 years later, the magnificent
ash was again rescued, this
time from an encroaching cherry
tree which the superintendent refused
to remove. Two professors
stole out in the dead of night, first
to poison the wild cherry, and
when that failed, to chop a fatal
ring around its trunk.

Today the ash is carefully
watched by the dedicated men of
Buildings and Grounds, and is
protected from lightning by an
apparatus installed after it was
struck in 1949. The oldest trees,
however, are believed to be the big
oaks located in front of the
Rotunda, which may be 200 years
old.