EICKER: botanical activity in district of COLUMBIA 493 



the Garden then being taken under government care as a part of 

 the Capitol grounds. The Institute had expended $1500 on 

 the grounds for walks and plantings and asked Congress to be 

 reimbursed, but this request was not granted. 



The National Institute was formed in the spring of 1841 with 

 rooms in the Patent Office. The plants of the Wilkes Expedi- 

 tion of 1838 were at once placed in their care, as were all other 

 Government scientific collections. Two small frame hot houses 

 on the northern part of the Patent Office square were used to 

 store part of the botanical collection. This Institute at one time 

 had 1600 members, but went out of existence about 1860 or 

 186P' due to the taking over of the Government collections by the 

 Smithsonian Institution, the National Institute having failed to 

 obtain control of the Smithson fund on account of it being a 

 purely private institute. The Smithsonian Institution was in- 

 corporated August 10, 1846. The building was not started 

 until May, 1847, and was completed in 1855. The Government 

 collections, presumably including plants which had previously 

 been at the Patent Office under cafe of the National Institute, 

 were turned over to the Smithsonian Institution in 1858 and the 

 collections of the National Institute in 1861.^^ The collection 

 of plants was transferred from the Smithsonian Institution to 

 the U. S. Department of Agriculture in 1868 and was returned 

 to the National Museum July 1, 1896. In 1851 the frame build- 

 ings above referred to were moved to the present site of the 

 Botanical Garden. This site, which soon came to be recog- 

 nized officially as the Botanical Garden, was placed in charge 

 of W. D. Breckenridge, botanist of the Wilkes Expedition. 

 William R. Smith, the late Superintendent, came to the Garden 

 from the Kew Gardens in England in 1853 and remained until the 

 date of his death. 



1* Encyclopedia Britannica ed. II. 25: 274. 1911- Bryan (loc. cit.) states 

 that it went out of existence in 1846 when the Smithsonian Institution was organ- 

 ized and that its collections were then turned over to the new institution. The 

 Proceedings of the National Institute were, however, published as late as Jan- 

 uary, 1857, a set of which is in the library of the U. S. Department of Agriculture. 



" Encyclopedia Britannica (loc. cit.). The National Museum was not offi- 

 cially mentioned by Congress until 1875, in connection with caring for the col- 

 lections from the Philadelphia Centennial. It was erected in 1881. 



