Before Mr. Jefferson came to town, Charlottesville consisted mostly of dense forests. Following the town's establishment, a growing population destroyed acres of forest to make way for lawns, crops and buildings. This mosaic of landscapes therefore negatively altered the soil balance by retarding nutrient recycling. Behind the McCormick Road dormitories, Assoc. Smith used the juxtaposition of the forest and the Dell behind Bonnycastle House to demonstrate the differences between the two ecosystems.
Forests cycle the majority of their nutrients when the trees lose their leaves in autumn.
Nutrients are reabsorbed either directly by trees or are broken down by bacteria and fungi into easily absorbed inorganic nutrients. The creation of lawns, including the Dell picnic area and the famous University Lawn, results in an overall loss of nutrients. Lawn grass, on its own, cannot provide enough nutrients to sustain itself. Although the University chemically fertilizes the lawns biannually to replenish the lost nutrients, excess fertilizer can run off the land and concentrate in nearby watersheds. University officials, however, take measures to alleviate the problems of nutrient pollution by leaving grass clippings, so that some nutrients might be recycled without the use of fertilizers.