small wild fruit the size of a pea to a fruit the size of a Concord grape, and we have made its culture a profitable industry. This one small piece of scientific work has an industrial value of millions of dollars. These results I should never have been able to accomplish without greenhouse facilities situated close to my office. Many new things had to be found out about blueberry plants, and by daily contact with them I became as familiar with their behavior and their needs as a dairy farmer with the behavior and needs of his cattle.

Some day the space occupied by our temporary greenhouses at the Department of Agriculture will be needed for a public building. Where then shall we go? To do the most effective work, we must follow our greenhouses. If your committee chooses wisely to-day, we shall go to the new botanical garden; for among the opportunities to be found there our work is bound to become most useful to the Nation.

I urge upon the members of this committee as strongly as my command of language permits that in deciding between the two proposed sites you choose the one recommended by the Fine Arts Commission. If the present Congress shall authorize that site, it will not only have reached a wise solution of a present problem, but it will confer a lasting benefit on the whole country. On and about that site can be brought together in future years such related activities as future Congresses may decide to be wise and prudent. The botanical, horticultural, and agricultural activities that would find their natural location about this site would constitute an agency of human progress the value of which is beyond calculation in money.

In closing permit me to call your attention to one very important feature of this proposal. If you select such a site as shall inevitably bring about the grouping of activities that I have outlined, you will not be spending money on a place of mere recreation, with only an intangible return of benefits, but you will be making an investment which will yield to the Nation dividends of many dollars for every dollar you put in.

STATEMENT OF MR. WALTER T. SWINGLE, IN CHARGE OF THE CROP PHYSIOLOGY AND BREEDING, BUREAU OF PLANT INDUS TRY, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Mr. SWINGLE. Mr. Chairman, I am in charge of the chief office of plant breeding in the Department of Agriculture, and have seen the work grow from a very small beginning 25 years ago until now 20 offices are carrying on work in plant breeding. One of the most important phases of the work that our department is doing is represented by the office. We are the only people whose home country is of continental extent. The European countries, like England, France, and Germany are, after all, only small in extent, and have only a limited range of climate. In America, in our home country, we have every range of climate, from tropical Florida to the glacial regions of Arctic Alaska. The European methods and plants our forefathers brought over with them did very well in the eastern part of the country, but as the pioneers penetrated westward until they reached Arizona and California they found themselves vastly outstripped in effectiveness by the Mexicans, who used Spanish crops and Spanish methods, developed partly by the Moors during their long occupation of Spain. In other words, we are forced in our country of continental extent to carefully consider whether or not the agricultural practices that our ancestors brought from northwestern Europe are best adapted to our climatic conditions. I am prepared to say that we have pretty conclusively proven that they are not, and that we can vastly increase the yield and the profit of agricultural production of foods, of fiber plants, and of medicinal plants by the use of the proper choice of strains and by the proper breeding of new types. I might give one or two instances to show the almost miraculous

creation of wealth that comes in this way. Ten years ago five members of our bureau took up the problem of finding a satisfactory method of growing Egyptian cotton in this country. Up to that time no Egyptian cotton had been grown in this country successfully; and in 1910 the first bale of Egyptian cotton was laboriously harvested and baled in Arizona, the very first one ever grown in America. Remember that there is no tariff protection on cotton and that the freight rates from Arizona to the New England mills are about the same as those from Alexandria to the same mills, and that the labor charges are ten times as high in Arizona as in Egypt. Nevertheless, by scientific investigation of cultural methods, and by the breeding of better types of Egyptian cotton, and by the close organization of the farmers this industry has grown from nothing 10 years ago until in 1919 the cotton crop from the Salt River Valley of Arizona was worth over $20,000,000. This is almost entirely new wealth; it is not merely the substitution of other crops by cotton, but immense new areas-in one case 10,000 acres in one field-were reclaimed from the desert, irrigated, and planted to Egyptian cotton.

The CHAIRMAN. You mean our southern cotton would not have grown out there in Arizona?

Mr. SWINGLE. Our Egyptian cotton does not grow where the southern cotton does, and it is used for a different purpose; it is used largely in the manufacture of automobile-tire fabric.

The CHAIRMAN. You could not grow our southern cotton in Arizona?

Mr. SWINGLE. It can be grown only at very great disadvantage. The CHAIRMAN. It is not profitable to raise it?

Mr. SWINGLE. It is not profitable to raise it.

I have made a calculation which shows that the income tax returned to the Federal Government from the Egyptian cotton industry in Arizona and California is about twenty times what this investigation cost, to say nothing about the benefits to the States and counties and individuals themselves. In other words, the chief end of these investigations by the Department of Agriculture is the securing of useful crop plants and the breeding of varieties properly adapted to the soil and climatic conditions; and having, as we do, every range of soil and climate, it is hopeless to expect the old-time crops of northwestern Europe to be satisfactory; and I believe it is a matter of the most vital importance for the future that there be maintained in Washington a suitable central place where plants can be grown and flowered, which will be afforded under the new project.

The CHAIRMAN. What other instance did you have in mind besides Egyptian cotton? You said you were going to give us several in

stances.

Mr. SWINGLE. Take the case of the navel orange. In 1871 Mr. Saunders, in charge of the greenhouses of the Department of Agriculture, brought from Bahia, Brazil, a famous orange known as the Bahia navel orange. It was then merely a curiosity, and a few plants were brought back by Mr. Saunders, which resulted in the establishment of an industry in which there is now nearly $200,000,000 invested; it is one of the most scientific and highly organized horticultural industries. The income from that investment is simply prodigious.

Another important study we are making is that of the Chinese pear. Ten years ago they dug up some Asiatic pear trees on the grounds of the Department of Agriculture which were in the way of some road. Nobody could foresee the importance of maintaining these fine Chinese pears. They are indispensable to the modern pear industry, in which there is invested probably $50,000,000 or more, because the pear blight rots the root; we must have the Chinese pear, with a blight-resistant root system, and we must have the right kind of Chinese pear.

Mr. MOORE. Now please tell us about the dates.

Mr. SWINGLE. About 20 years ago Mr. Fairchild and I and some others were sent to Africa and Asia to investigate the date industry with the view to possibly establishing that industry in the southwestern part of the United States. It was found difficult to get information, because, while the Arabs had grown dates for a thousand years, they had kept no records; but after a lot of investigation and hard labor we have within the last 20 years moved the center of the date industry from the Sahara Desert to California, and we now produce the best dates in the world.

Senator KNOX. How high do date palms grow?

Mr. SWINGLE. Seventy-five to 100 feet.

Mr. PELL. Will they grow in Florida?

Mr. SWINGLE. Yes; but not so well as they do in California.
Mr. PELL. Are those California dates marketed?

Mr. SWINGLE. They are sold in the Pacific coast cities, San Francisco and Los Angeles, but are not yet produced in sufficient quantities to reach the eastern markets, but about $500,000 is being invested annually in the extension of the date industry, in which ultimately between $20,000,000 and $50,000,000 will be invested. In a quarter of a century I look for the date as one of the best and cheapest human foods produced. It has advanced to such a point that we can advise the farmer with absolute certainty that a certain date will succeed. If an untested variety be planted and it fails to succeed it means a great loss to him, because, if after 8 or 10 years, when the date begins to bear full crops, it turns out to be the wrong variety, the farmer has to dig it up, and it is a total loss, because the date palm can not be budded or grafted. For this reason it is necessary to study all the principal varieties of dates to learn which ones are suited to our climatic, soil, and market conditions.

Mr. JOHNSON. Since these two institutions are under different managements, the Agricultural Department, and the Botanic Garden, will there not be a conflict or a duplication of work?

Mr. SWINGLE. I do not think so.

Mr. JOHNSON. How will you obviate it?

Mr. SWINGLE. The only question is to have some place where these many parent trees can be grown. It takes 10 or 15 years for a tree like the Chinese pear to produce fruit in large quantity.

Mr. JOHNSON. If the Mount Hamilton tract could be secured for a botanic garden, what authority would the Department of Agriculture have to use it?

Mr. SWINGLE. The Agriculture Department would merely have cooperative authority, just as we cooperate with the Smithsonian Institution, and many other scientific institutions. The Department

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of Agriculture must cooperate with at least 100 institutions in the United States.

Mr. JOHNSON. Do you think they cooperate in plans better than one conducted entirely by the Agricultural Department?

Mr. SWINGLE. I am inclined to think so.

Mr. JOHNSON. You have not been dealing with the future without looking toward the necessity of more land?

Mr. SWINGLE. Yes; but I merely say that as Mr. Coville did, it is necessary to have land near by.

Mr. JOHNSON. Where is your office?

Mr. SWINGLE. In the Department of Agriculture.

Mr. JOHNSON. How close to your office now are you doing this work?

Mr. SWINGLE. We have greenhouses a few blocks away, where I am doing some of this work, but some is being done elsewhere. It is necessary to have plant material as close to our office as possible. Mr. JOHNSON. What is it that you can do at this proposed botanic garden that you can not do in the lands already owned or being operated by the Department of Agriculture?

Mr. SWINGLE. One is, for instance, the Chinese pear trees. We would not have to send expensive expeditions to the Orient if we could have these trees growing nearby. When they built the new buildings on the Agricultural grounds the pear trees had to be cut down.

Mr. JOHNSON. Where were they located?

Mr. SWINGLE. In the Department of Agriculture grounds.

Mr. JOHNSON. Has not the Department of Agriculture a lot of land over on the other side of the river?

Mr. SWINGLE. It has land at Arlington, but because of the Government's immense investment in the Lincoln Memorial and the National Cemetery at Arlington it makes it doubtful whether that is the best locality for such a large farm, and it may have to be abandoned some day.

Mr. MOORE. The enlargement of Arlington Cemetery is going to take that in some day, Mr. Johnson.

The CHAIRMAN. Are those lands occupied by the experiment station owned by the Government or simply leased?

Mr. SWINGLE. Yes; it is owned by the Government. We are only temporarily occupying Government land, from which we may be evicted next year; we do not know.

Mr. JOHNSON. It is your opinion that when Arlington is enlarged, and your present grounds, your present operations, are pushed back, you will not be pushed back farther into Virginia, but they will jump you over to Mount Hamilton; is that your theory about it?

Mr. SWINGLE. I would not say that; I am simply speaking of the advantage of Mount Hamilton and of planting these trees in grounds where we can see them without traveling 12,000 miles to go where they grow wild.

Mr. JOHNSON. If the Chinese pear trees were taken to the ground you have already, would you have to travel 12,000 miles to see them? Mr. SWINGLE. No; provided that they could be planted permanently; we have no such place now.

Mr. JOHNSON. Do you mean to say that there is only one place, and that is Mount Hamilton?

Mr. SWINGLE. I do not; I merely say that the department does not now have a suitable place. I think I have not specifically mentioned in my testimony Mount Hamilton, although I believe Mount Hamilton is a good site. I believe the Government should have one place where a worthy botanical garden could be built ranking this country not twenty-fifth but first. The Kew garden has given to the world uncounted wealth.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you other speakers?

Senator KNOX. This is pretty much cumulative.

The CHAIRMAN. I hope you will be as brief as you can now. Unless you have some new points, the thing is simply cumulative; in the interest of time, I wish you would make your statements as brief as possible.

STATEMENT OF DR. C. STUART GAGER, DIRECTOR BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN, BROOKLYN, N. Y.

Dr. GAGER. Mr. Chairman, I shall be very glad to be brief. In fact, there is little more to be said. It seems to me that the subject before us can be divided in three points. First, what is a botanic garden; second, should the United States Government maintain a botanic garden; and third, where should this botanic garden be located?

It would seem to me from what has been said by preceeding speakers that a botanic garden is something more than would be indicated by the name "Botanic Garden"; it does not mean that such a garden is a specialized kind of park merely; a botanic garden is not merely a spacious kind of park. Perhaps it would be an extreme saying to say that the park feature is incidental in the development of a botanical garden. That would perhaps be a little extreme, but a botanical garden is not merely a specialized kind of park. That is only one feature. Its distinct object from an educational and scientific standpoint is the advancement of definition and knowledge of plants; and that should be adequately provided for by the United States Government, and in order that it may be adequately provided for, it should have the Government behind it.

The United States, of course, has been backward and behind all other nations in the matter of botanic gardens. For over a hundred years botanic gardens have been regarded in many countries as an important government activity. Coming down on the train I counted up the number of botanic gardens in the United States, and I could only count 14, of which 7 have been established in the past 15 or 20 years; and those figures include this so-called pseudo botanic garden here in Washington at the present time and two or three very small developments at some of our small colleges, like Mount Holyoke, Mass., and institutions like that. Great Britain has 12, Austria 13, France 22, Italy 27, Germany 36, and all South American countries and the Asiatic countries have had botanic gardens for centuries. It seems to me that in that fact alone we may find that there is a fundamental reason why the Government should support and develop botanic gardens. Of course, we recognize that agriculture is the fundamental human industry and realize that every permanent advancement in agriculture has been made only on the basis of what botanical science has contributed. I need hardly go into the neces