REPORT OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY. 81 



April 22, 1896. 

 Hou. W. B. Allison, 



Chairman Committee on Appropriations, United States Senate. 



Dear Sir: In rosponso to your desire, communicated through Mr. Coville, for 

 further information as to the purpose and effect of granting to the National Museum 

 an additional sum of $10,000 for the maintenance of the National Herbarium, I have 

 to reply as follows : 



When, nearly two years ago, the Secretary of Agriculture found the Department 

 buildings entirely too small, and it was brought to his attention that a large amount 

 of space was occupied by a collection of plants estimated to be worth $250,000, and 

 liable at any time to be destroyed by lire, arrangements were made with the Smith- 

 sonian Institution to house the collection in the fireproof building of the National 

 Museum. The Department agreed to retain on its rolls, so ^ong as the appropriatica 

 permitted it, the force of assistants necessary in caring for the c llection, but tho 

 unexpected reduction iu the botanical appropriation, recently made, has forced the 

 Secretary to ask that he be relieved of this charge. 



If the proposed appropriation be made, the force of assistants and mounters now 

 engaged iu caring for the herbarium in the National Museum building will be trans- 

 ferred to the rolls of that institution, and the places thus made vacant upon the 

 statutory roll in our division of botany will be filled by the transfer of employees 

 now on the botanical lump sum. No new employees will be appointed as a result of 

 the change, and the statutory position of assistant curator will be left vacant 

 during the coming year, either to be abolished in the next agricultural appropria- 

 tion bill or to be changed to assistant botanist. 



Besides the emergency reasons just cited for the transfer of the herbarium, the 

 Department holds that the care of the collection is properly the function of the 

 Smithsonian Institution, but that it should always be open to the botanists of 

 the Department for reference and consultation in any investigation in which they 

 need it. The object, and the sole object, of the proposed change is to place the 

 herbarium in good hands and in its legitimate place, so as to enable the Department 

 to organize all the botanical work on a directly practical basis. 

 Respectfully, 



Chas. W. Dabney, Jr., 



Assistant Secretary. 



N. B. — This letter is written in connection with that of the Acting Secretary of the 

 Smithsonian Institution, dated April 22, 1896, addressed to the Hon. AV. B. Allison, 

 Chairman Committee on Appropriations, United States Senate, which is our author- 

 ity for the above statement with regard to the part to be performed by the National 

 Museum and Smithsonian Institution. 



April 22, 1896. 

 Hon. William B. Allison, 



Chairman Committee on Appropriations, United States Senate. 



Sir: I deem it my duty to bring to your attention tb(^ fact that unless some special 

 provision is made for its maintenance, the National Herbarium, recently transferred 

 from the care of the Department of Agriculture to that of the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion, will become comparatively useless. 



This is one of the largest collections of American plants in the world, and one of 

 the most important, embracing as it does the collections of all the Government sur- 

 veys from the time of Fremont and Wilkes to the present day. It contains about 

 two hundred and fifty thousand specimens, mostly American, and constitutes for 

 Auieriean botany a consultative library of specimens of the very gi-eatest impor- 

 tance. In it there are many types of American plants not to be found elsewhere, 

 and it is constantly consulted, either personally or through correspondence, by all 

 working botanists in America. 

 NAT MUS 90 6 



