VIEW OF NEW ROADWAY, POTOMAC PARK, SHOWING POWER HOUSE, PROPAGATING GARDENS, AND TIDAL RESERVOIR, LOOKING SOUTHEAST.

than can be accomplished with the money provided. The eastern portion, between the new roadway and the propagating gardens, will have to be raised 2 to 3 feet, and much of the area embraced covered with soil for the growth of grass, and some will have to be sodded and the rest seeded; some additional drainage will have to be put in; about 2,000 feet of cinder path for sidewalk and 2,000 feet of cinder bridle path will be required; about 800 trees will also be needed to complete the tree planting required.

It is also very much desired that Fifteenth street, between the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the propagating gardens from B street south to the new waterside drive, may be improved, as it is needed as the eastern approach to this new drive. This portion of Fifteenth street is not a city street, but a park road, and therefore its improvement must be provided for as a park improvement. This particular bit of work on Fifteenth street is needed that the greater waterside drive and improvement may be rendered pleasantly accessible and more useful.

To do all the work required of completing the improvement of this portion of Potomac Park and making the approach by Fifteenth street extended will cost, it is estimated, $20,000, and it is recommended that this amount be appropriated.

Proposed riverside drive. That portion of the Potomac Park up the river from the tidal basin is now in a condition to be improved to a certain extent. While its entire area has not been filled to the desired extent, it has been filled about to the proper grade along the tidal basin and the riverside. It is therefore suggested and recommended that along the tidal basin and the river there be constructed a macadam carriage road and a walk, and that along the riverside from the inlet to the tidal basin to the foot of Twenty-sixth street there be constructed alongside the macadam carriage way a soft road where horses can be properly exercised and speeded. This carriage road, walk, and speedway will furnish a greatly needed addition to the public ways of the city. The Potomac River has never been accessible in a pleasant way to the people of the city and this proposed drive is intended to make it so. It will be readily reached from the foot of . Seventeenth or Twenty-sixth streets, and will furnish a new, beautiful, and unique feature to the city drives. The soft roadway, or speedway, will be a comparatively inexpensive addition to the system which will be greatly appreciated by all owners and drivers of fine horses, and the exercising, driving, and speeding of these horses will be a source of pleasure, interest, and benefit to many thousands who love to see such sights. Nearly every important city in the country has built and maintains such a driveway somewhere within its borders, and whenever one has been built it has contributed so much to the pleasure and profit of the people that it is now regarded as an essential.

The estimated cost of this riverside drive with the approach along the west side of the tidal basin and at Twenty-sixth street west, sidewalk, speedway, trees, etc., is $160,000, and the appropriation of that amount is earnestly recommended.

PROPAGATING GARDENS, INCLUDING GREENHOUSES AND NURSERY.

One of the important and crying needs of the propagating gardens is a central heating plant. This must be quite evident when it is con

sidered that there are at the gardens 30 greenhouses which are heated by 20 separate and distinct heating plants, consisting each of furnace and boiler, and each requiring to be attended to, fed, and cared for separately. The care of these separate plants requires much more labor than a single entral plan doing the same work would, and the consumption of fuel is very considerably greater. As the price of fuel has gone up materially of late, and in all probability will go up more, all expedients tending to lessen its consumption should be adopted. In all private nurseries and collections of greenhouses similar to our propagating gardens, a central heating plant is used because of its greater economy and efficiency.

It is estimated that a central heating plant, housed in a neat, substantial, brick building, with room for boilers, coal, etc., together with the requisite piping for conveying steam to and through all the greenhouses, will cost about $25,000. The boilers should be in duplicate, as the collection of plants is of great value. There will be over 5 miles of steam-heating and conveying pipe required and the necessary appliances for controlling the steam and returning the water of condensation to the boilers. An appropriation of $25,000 is, therefore, in view of the above, requested and recommended for a central heating plant for the propagating gardens and White House greenhouses.

It is also necessary that these propagating gardens should be sewered and drained, and an appropriation of $2,500 is asked and recommended. The greenhouse structures were maintained in good condition during the year. Woodwork was repaired where needed, broken glass replaced with new glass, two of the houses and the glass roofs of others painted. Furnaces and flues were cleaned and leaking pipes repaired. Apparatus for operating ventilating sashes was placed in two houses. Three new cold frames were built and sashes in old frames repaired. A boiler was placed in the stokehole of houses numbered 27 and 28 and connected for use in heating the office building. The old wooden and glass superstructure of house No. 8 was torn down and a new superstructure erected in its place.

The old soil and potting shed was torn down and an addition to the new one built.

In the nursery the work required to maintain the improved part of the grounds in a neat and cleanly condition was extended, and necessary care was given to the growing stock. This stock, which was formerly growing in the front part of the grounds, was lifted and replanted in the rear south of the greenhouses, and the ground in front graded, sown down in grass seed, and some of the new roads projected for the improvement of the grounds constructed. The old water-lily tank in the front grounds was filled up and the ground graded and made into lawn surface. Forty-one evergreen trees were planted at the north entrance to the grounds in front of the office building and a group of evergreens planted on the lawn at that front. The ground in the rear of that building was graded and covered with top soil. A privet hedge was planted along the east side of the nursery grounds and 600 cubic yards of earth were used in filling low portions of the addition to the nursery grounds which was transferred to the jurisdiction of this office, by order of the Chief of Engineers, by Lieut. Col. Charles J. Allen, Corps of Engineers, U. S. Army, August 27, 1901.

This office is frequently in receipt of requests for the loan of plants from the gardens for the use of churches, fairs, festivals, etc., and demands are constantly made for flowering and decorative plants for private purposes.

All such requests have to be declined, as either the loan or gift of any plants would be in violation of the following extract from the Act of Congress approved June 20, 1878:

Provided, That hereafter only such trees, shrubs, and plants shall be propagated at the greenhouses and nursery as are suitable for planting in the public reservations to which purposes only the said productions of the greenhouses and nursery shall be applied.

In addition to the plants (over 1,000,000) propagated at these gardens for the reservations under the charge of this Office, there were also propagated over 30,000 plants for other Departments of the Government. After those were supplied, the surplus remaining, about 20,000 plants, were distributed to hospitals, Government offices, and to whoever asked for them.

Appended hereto is a list showing the stock grown, purchased, planted in the parks, and distributed during the year.

List of stock propagated, purchased, and distributed.

NOTE: The item "Surplus stock," comprising about 2 per cent of the aggregate number of plants propagated, consisted mainly of the least thrifty plants which remained on the greenhouse benches after the best stock for park planting had been culled out, and constituted also a reserve stock to provide for possible replantings of the beds earliest planted, which in some seasons become necessary from late frosts.

The best of these surplus plants were sent out to hospitals, etc., that applied for them, and the remainder, which would necessarily be thrown out, as the Government had no further use for them, were distributed promiscuously to the general public.