and things of that kind, which makes the northern approach to the city narrow and inadequate. It seems perfectly reasonable to expect that Maryland Avenue can be extended to connect with avenues in the proposed gardens on the Mount Hamilton tract and connect with the Reform School property. This would give a very worthy and magnificent entrance to the city.

Mr. MOORE. There is one short stretch to connect Anacostia Park with the Bladensburg road beyond the Reform School property. The commission has secured from the private owners of that tract a roadway skirting the Anacostia from the District line to connect with the Bladensburg road. That will be added to the Maryland highway system because it is in Maryland; but we wanted an outlet from the upper end of Anacostia Park, and have secured it. Senator KNOx. As I understand it, the entrance to the south is a very dignified entrance over the Long Bridge and through the park system.

Gen. HARTS. Yes, sir; as soon as you get into the District of Columbia from the south you are immediately in a park area; that is, a very handsome and dignified approach; and, of course, when we get the Memorial Bridge it will add to the dignity and beauty of the approach from the south.

Senator KNOX. Similarly to the west there is an excellent approach, is there not?

Mr. MOORE. Senator, we are working on a plan nowplan now-Sixteenth Street has become the great central avenue of the District of Columbia. We are consulting with the Maryland authorities to get an extension of Sixteenth Street out into Maryland so as to connect with the highway to Baltimore. At the present time when you want to go to Baltimore from say Meridian Hill, you have to come into the city and go over to the other side of the Capitol and out Maryland Avenue. There should be a direct road from the end of Sixteenth Street to Baltimore. The Commission of Fine Arts has suggested to the Roosevelt Memorial Committee that they locate the memorial to Theodore Roosevelt at the entrance to the District of Columbia on Sixteenth Street.

Senator KNOX. Will that Baltimore road be by way of the Frederick Pike?

Mr. MOORE. Very nearly; there would be two roads, one going to Frederick and the other going to Baltimore.

Senator KNOX. Now, we have had the entrance on the north, south, and west. The east entrance, I suppose, is the one over the hill acress the river at the end of Pennsylvania Avenue, is it not? Mr. MOORE. Yes.

Senator KNOX. That is a good entrance, except for a little way, is it not?

Mr. MOORE. The Maryland roads generally are good. Speaking of the entrance from the south, of course there should be a boulevard from Washington to Mount Vernon. The road from the end of the Highway Bridge to Alexandria and to Mount Vernon is not adequate; it should be much wider.

Senator KNOX. I was not speaking so much of the highways as the general environment: it is fine, from the south, as I understand it. Mr. MOORE. Certainly.

New. I would like to have Dr. Coville address the committee.

STATEMENT OF MR. FREDERICK V. COVILLE, BOTANIST, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE.

Mr. COVILLE. Mr. Chairman, a botanical garden has its use in the recreation and education of the public, but its greatest use, to my mind, is in relation to plant breeding. I believe that in the next 50 or 100 years we shall make more advance in the development of new plants of use to man by plant breeding than we have made in the whole history of civilization. Scientific men, practical men, are both enormously interested in it. We have found out some of the laws of heredity and we are rapidly putting them into use.

The CHAIRMAN. In what bureau of the Department of Agriculture are you located?

Mr. COVILLE. In the Bureau of Plant Industry.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you head of it?

Mr. COVILLE. No: I am the botanist.

The CHAIRMAN Who is the head of it?

Mr. COVILLE. Dr. W. A. Taylor.

We have in the Botanical Society of Washington, which consists of professional botanists, about 200 members, men who are engaged in the advancement of civilization by the discovery and application of botanical facts. One of the instruments which we ought to have is a botanical garden. We do not have it at the present time. We have on the grounds of the Department of Agriculture certain greenhouses which we are allowed by law to use temporarily. How soon these will be taken away from us we do not know. Ultimately some public building will be placed on the east side of the Mall opposite the Department of Agriculture and then, of course, the greenhouses will have to go. If the greenhouses in which we work are not in immediate proximity to our offices, our efficiency suffers. One of the things that I have been able to do personally while attending to extensive duties of other sorts has been to breed certain plants of agricultural interest. The plant to which I have devoted most attention is the blueberry. We have changed the blueberry from a small wild fruit about the size of a pea to a fruit that looks like a Concord grape. The new plants which we have developed will grow in soils which are not used for any other purpose; soils which are sterile to other plants will grow these improved blueberries. The point I wish to make, Mr. Chairman, is that if I had not had the use of these greenhouses I should never have been able to do this work. These blueberries have yielded at the rate of nearly a thousand dollars an acre, and while the investigation is only a very small item in our scientific work the industry that will grow out of the investigation will be worth millions of dollars.

The CHAIRMAN. Do these berries preserve their taste and qualities?

Mr. COVILLE. They do; and by selection we are getting berries that are even superior in flavor to the wild ones.

This is simply one example of the work we are doing. If there were in Washington a botanical garden of proper equipment, it is inevitable that a great deal of the work of the Department of Agriculture will ultimately be moved to it or to its neighborhood. It is a question of being intimately associated with the tools with which you are working.

1

There is one feature of a botanical garden in Washington to which I should like to call your special attention. If it is of adequate size and is located where the Washington botanists can work with it, it not only will cost you nothing in the long run, but for every dollar you put into it you will take many dollars out. I do not mean that this garden will declare dividends, but through the information it will disseminate and the new industries it will create it will vastly increase the tax returns to the Government.

Mr. MOORE. Will you please tell the committee what you think of the availability of Mount Hamilton as a site for the purposes of a botanical garden.

Mr. COVILLE. The Mount Hamilton site has a large variety of soils," from gravels on the higher slopes, in which wild blueberries are growing, with trailing arbutus, azaleas, and laurel, to the wild rice. marshes which constitute the eastern part of the site, and the fertile alluvial soils along the river. In its variety of soils and exposure it is admirably adapted to botanical garden purposes; it could hardly be improved. I should like to say also that parts of this area have been very severely injured in past years by ground fires. I was on the site recently and found areas in which the underbrush had been killed by fire within two weeks. In the large forest area some of the trees have been killed and some have been injured. These firest could be stopped at once by an adequate patrol. If fires are kept out of this tract, the larger part of which is forested, it will become a natural botanical garden without the use of any instrument except an ax, to trim out occasional dead and undesirable trees. Even now it is used extensively by the people of that part of the city as a place for Sunday and holiday strolls. The strip which constitutes one part of the site, along the Anacostia River, known as Hickey Hill, is a great bird resort, one of the most remarkable of the District. It is full of all sorts of nesting birds, which feed in the marshes.

I have here some pictures that were taken in that locality recently through the courtesy of Mr. Fairchild. They will give you some idea of the attractiveness of portions of this area.

The CHAIRMAN. Speaking of the experiments you are conducting I would like to know if the Department of Agriculture has any lands out in the country near the city of Washington where such experiments could be conducted?

Mr. COVILLE. No. I breed these hybrid blueberries in the greenhouse and keep them there until they are a year old. Then I ship them to a place down in the fine barrens of New Jersey, about 40 miles east of Philadelphia, where the soil is acid and sandy. When they come to maturity we select those bearing fruit of the largest size, best color, most productive, of the best flavor. That is the way my work has been done.

The CHAIRMAN. What I am seeking information about is whether proper lands-cheaper lands than those in the Mount Hamilton tract-could not be secured farther out for the purposes of the Department of Agriculture?

Mr. COVILLE. For the extensive field work yes, but for the breeding work no. It would be undesirable for this reason: This work is a side line, one might say, done in our spare time as we can take it from our office duties. We have administrative work to perform,

1 See map 41, end of vol. 2.

and unless we can have greenhouse facilities within easy reach of us, within a few minutes' walk, we do not do the greenhouse work. The effectiveness of the bureau would be enormously increased by this additional facility.

Mr. PELL. Just what route do you take to get out to the Mount Hamilton property?

Mr. COVILLE. You go down Maryland Avenue to Fifteenth and H Streets NE., and then out the Bladensburg Pike.

Mr. PELL. Is the Anacostia Park in existence at the present time? Mr. COVILLE. Yes; the Government is developing it.

Mr. PELL. And that belongs to the Government?

Mr. COVILLE. It belongs to the Government. With the purchase of Mount Hamilton you can get the use also of all this Government land along the Anacostia River. You can not use the Anacostia flats alone for the botanical gardens, because it is all below the 10-foot level and all practically one type of soil. This is tidewater here [pointing to map], and it is only 10 feet above mean low water. Mr. PELL. I did not realize that the lands were as low as that. Mr. COVILLE. Maryland Avenue is to be opened by prolonging it to the base of Mount Hamilton, but if Maryland Avenue went beyond that point it would cost the Government more to grade the streets than Mount Hamilton would cost.

Mr. Coville submitted the following communication supplementing his statement:

STATEMENT ON THE REQUIREMENTS OF A BOTANICAL GARDEN SITE IN WASHINGTON ADDRESSED TO THE CONGRESSIONAL JOINT COMMITTEE ON THE LIBRARY.

[By Frederick V. Coville, Botanist, Department of Agriculture.]

MAY 21, 1920.

GENTLEMEN: The old National Botanic Garden which now occupies a site of about 12 acres of land at the foot of the Capitol Grounds is to be moved, because it stands in the way of certain park improvements that have already been determined upon by congressional action.

I understand that the superintendent of the garden had at one time recommended as a new site a tract of about 20 acres of level ground in the Mall, immediately west of the present garden.

The Fine Arts Commission has recommended a tract of some 400 acres lying at the northeast edge of the city of Washington and comprising a wide variety of soils and exposure, from a tidal wild-rice marsh, suitable for water gardens, to extensive oak hills 200 feet or more in height.

I speak in favor of the site recommended by the Fine Arts Commission. The man who made the present garden, the late William R. Smith, was a friend of mine, and I was a friend of his. I have the highest respect for that Scotchman, for his sterling character, for the garden that he built, and for the pleasure he gave the public in it. But now it is necessary to move this garden. It would be easy to transfer it to a more convenient position and to increase somewhat its size, but these changes alone will not meet the needs of the present or the future.

In selecting the new site your committee has a duty to perform of far greater importance than appears upon the surface. If you choose wisely and in the interest of the whole American public, you will make provision for a line of activity that will stimulate the scientific and horticultural progress of the Nation for many generations.

The new garden should preserve the objects of the old garden, the first and most important of which is to provide a place in which the public, especially the man who works, can find rest and enjoyment and refreshment of mind out of doors surrounded by the atmosphere of beauty and dignity and curious interest of nature that pervades a well-planned garden of trees and flowers.

But there are other and still more important services that a National Botanical Garden can render. It should contain plantings of all the native trees and shrubs of the various States, that can be grown out of doors in this climate in a condition of health and beauty. The garden should be a great public educator in the art of landscape gardening. It should be so located and so conducted that visitors from every part of the United States will carry home with them an impression of what they may do, in their own communities, and largely with their own native materials, to make life more natural and more enjoyable, and consequently more effective.

Our nursery catalogues are in a condition of great confusion as to the names and the varieties of ornamental plants. The new garden should contain authentic examples of these varieties, so that nurserymen may be sure that the things they are selling are accurately named in their catalogues. The purchasing public would then buy with greater confidence and with great freedom. These and other useful purposes the new garden can be made to serve if it is located on the admirable site recommended by the Fine Arts Commission, with its large area, its varied topography, and its many types of soil.

The new garden can be made to perform one function, however, more important than any of those I have mentioned, more important indeed, in my opinion, than all the others put together. To this use of the garden I should like to call the special attention of the committee. I refer to the relation of the garden to the breeding of new plants useful to man.

It is my opinion that in the next 50 or 100 years we shall make greater advance in the development of useful plants than has been made in the whole history of the human race up to the present generation. All the conditions are ripe for that development. Science and practice are united in the enterprise. The State agricultural experiment stations, the biological research laboratories of our universities and other institutions, and many individual experimenters, are pushing forward with this work. The Department of Agriculture is bringing together, little by little, from distant parts of the world the wild relatives of cultivated plants. There is no place in or near Washington, however, in which they can be perpetuated. Some of them find use in other places, but many need a recognized situation here where they can be kept for observation, study, and experiment. Such a place would be afforded by a National Botanical Garden located on the site recommended by the Fine Arts Commission. If a properly equipped garden is established there, it is inevitable that it would be a center about which would ultimately focus much of the plant-breeding work of the Department of Agriculture.

The Smithsonian Institution is the custodian of an immensely valuable botanical collection of more than a million specimens from all parts of the world. Practically all the plants of the world will ultimately be represented in that collection, which is known as the United States National Herbarium. When a properly equipped botanical garden is established in Washington the Smithsonian Institution will undoubtedly find that the most useful location for the National Herbarium is in or near that garden.

We have no botanical library in Washington. The two or three hundred professional botanists working here use the botanical books belonging to various public libraries, including those of the Department of Agriculture, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Museum, the Library of Congress, and the Library of the Surgeon General's Office. Some day a wise person, or a wise institution of great wealth, will found a botanical library in Washington, for it will be more useful here than anywhere else in the world; and that library, when founded, will, like the National Herbarium, find its most useful location in or near the garden I have described.

Washington will then have the following equipment: A botanical garden containing the world's most interesting plants, a library containing the world's botanical literature, a herbarium containing specimens of practically all the kinds of plants in the world-and these things will be utilized by hundreds of active botanical workers in Washington and elsewhere.

As an illustration of the value of easily accessible greenhouses, let me cite a piece of work of my own on the blueberry. For several years we have been engaged at the Department of Agriculture in an attempt to domesticate this wild fruit, and after prolonged experimentation our object has been accomplished. Our hybrid bushes have yielded such an abundance of berries, so large and so delicious, that they have brought returns to the grower at the rate of nearly a thousand dollars an acre. We have changed the blueberry from a