Atkins financed the work of the Harvard botanists who developed a cane variety resistant to disease.

The Harvard botanists turned the Garden into a tropical laboratory wherein they planted trees from across the world.[4]Mr.

and Mrs. Atkins were also fond of plant collecting and soon afterwards started a tropical and rare species garden in the backyard of their estate where plants from as far as India and China were grown in tropical Cuba.

It was near Central Soledad and was then called the Atkins Institution of the Arnold Arboretum.

[5]Today the garden has a large collection of tropical exotic plants (2000+ species) clustered in 670 genera and 125 botanical families.