This beautiful plot of eleven acres, given some forty years ago to the city as a public park, by a citizen named Strutt, and laid out in arboretum style by J. C. Loudon, the distinguished landscape gardener of that day, has recently been opened freely to the public amidst the universal rejoicings of the citizens of Derby. Mr. Strutt willed that the ground should be given on condition that it should be open free on Sundays, that the working people of the week might enjoy it on that day, and as often in the week as the funds would permit. Only now has the corporation been able to carry out the wish of the founder, and make a free park every day in the year.

It may be noted as showing the greater wealth of arborescent plants adapted to American gardening over those in England, that though every effort was made to put in the Derby arboretum every ligneous plant that would thrive in Britain - two plants of each kind - the number of species and marked varieties was only 401 - 802 plants in all. While at the American Centennial, 750 species and marked varieties from the Germantown nurseries were on exhibition, and 1,000 had been prepared ready to ship to Paris for that exposition, had not the strict "letter of the law" been invoked by Senator Krantz, the Director, who could not think it proper to treat with an American citizen directly, instead of through the government, for space wherein to plant them.