Much of the financing for the arboretum's special programs comes from the Massachusetts Council for the Arts and Humanities. Sylverson says she is concerned about funding for some programs because the council has been experiencing funding problems in the wake of the state budget crunch.

But funding has not been the arboretum's only problem in recent years. About 10 years ago, a woman was attacked while jogging through the arboretum in the early morning. Security at the arboretum was subsequently increased. Today park rangers from the Boston Park District patrol the grounds on horseback and in jeep vans. Boston Police also drive through the grounds many times daily, says Jo Procter, the arboretum's public affairs oficer.

Another recurring problem has been the occasional dumping of waste on the arboretum's fields. The latest instance was in February. The arboretum's gate was broken open and trash was found dumped near the road in a remote section of the park.

Procter says the problem of dumping has increased in recent years because of the filling up of landfill in the Boston area. Dumping has also been a problem in other area parks, she says. While increased security can take care of some of the problem, Procter says only conservation and recycling can help to alleviate that problem in the long run.

But the arboretum's history is much richer than the past, somewhat troubled decade might indicate. The conservatory draws some of its reputation from being the only arboretum of its kind designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, one of America's first and greatest landscape architects. He also planned New York's Central Park and Boston's "Emerald Necklace"--the series of parkways lining Brookline Avenue and Route One--as well as the Charles River Basin. Because of Olmsted's reputation as a landscape architect, architecture schools from around the world send students and faculty to view the grounds and examine plants they have been studying in landscape-planning courses.

The Harvard Graduate School of Design brings its students to the arboretum, as does Simmons, Wheelock and Boston University, which use the property to train their education students in botanical teaching and other sciences.

Harvard courses taught through the arboretum include introductory biology classes, an extension school course on vascular plants and a course taught by Koller on botany.

"Students use our research and slide library and we have an active exchange program with many arboretums, herbariums and universities around the world," says Jeanne Christianson, coordinator of visitor services. "We have over a million plant species preserved or pressed from over a hundred years of collecting."

The collecting side of the arboretum's work comprises probably its most lasting effect on the botanical world, although it is renowned for its landscaping and the selection of the portion of its living collection planted at Jamaica Plain.

Scientists working out of the arboretum's facilities are currently doing work on the flora of all of China and North America, as well as work on other countries' flora. The professors working on the China flora project came to Harvard in March to discuss its progress.

Another area Cook says he wishes to focus on is the greater awareness of the problems of deforestation of rain forests and the preservation of plants from areas that may be deforested soon.

The arboretum is involved in several conservation projects, one of them collecting plants from rain forests in Southeat Asia before they disappear. This project, funded by a grant from the National Geographic Society, is being done with help with the Herbarium Bogoriense, the national herbarium of Indonesia, the Sarallka and National Museum of the Philippines, as well as herbariums in Thailand and Paupau New Guinea.

The arboretum also has faculty studying rain forests and the evolution of their complex biological makeup. Cook says he wants to "focus on work at the arboretum on biodiversity and the loss of rain forests. We should be supporting efforts by various departments more and using our resources more to support that kind of effort."

The research resources of the arboretum are about the best in the world for work on any type of botany work, says Mercer Fellow John S. Burley, a botanist working at the arboretum.

Burley's particular project, funded by the National Cancer Institute, involves the collection of Southeast Asian plants that might help in alleviating or curing cancer and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. The work, which is being done jointly with the University of Illinois at Chicago's pharmaceutical program, also entails the interviewing of doctors and other natives who know which plants are used as medicinals.

Burley has collected plants from the Philippines and Sumatra so far. He is also working on the National Geographic Society project and the Southeast Asia flora project.

Projects such as Burley's depend upon the Arboretum's plant and written libraries for much of their basic research. Without the wide-ranging collection of Southeast Asian plants the arboretum holds, Burley says his work would be very difficult.

The plant collection includes more than 1.5 million plant specimens.

So, as Cook begins his tenure, his major goals are already approaching fruition. The arboretum is finding its place as both a resource center for scholars, and a learning ground for the young. The garden just may yield a bumper crop one day soon.