REPORT OF ARCHITECT OF UNITED STATES CAPITOL. 15 



growing trees, closely planted, poorly fed, and never properly thinned or pruned. 

 Forty years after tlieir planting the larger number of those remaining alive were found 

 feeble, top heavy, and ill grown. 



Foy had planted in his outer belts some garden-like trees, very suitable to bis pur- 

 pose, magnolias, tree-boxes, hollies, and also some conifers, mostly thuyas, it is be- 

 lieved, but among them there was at least one Cedar of Lebanon. With them, how- 

 ever, or subsequently, more rapid growing deciduous trees unfortunately were also 

 planted, and through neglect of thinning, the effect of drip and exhaustion of the soil 

 the choicer sorts were nearly all smothered, starved, or sickened. A few crippled hollies 

 ( IJex opaca) only remain. The violets and periwinkle ( Vinca) now on the ground are 

 largely of direct descent from those planted by Foy. 



Most other trees within the limits of the Capitol inclosure before the enlargement 

 of the Capitol in 1857 were removed to make way for the new building operations, or 

 in consequence of the changes required in the grade of the ground to adapt it to the 

 new work, or, later, to the grading done by the District government of the adjoining 

 streets. It was found that the roots of most of the old trees, after having grown out 

 of the small pits in which they were planted, had been unable to penetrate the clay 

 around them, but had pushed upward and outward, spreading upon its surface and 

 within a thin stratum of looser and darker material, consisting, it is believed, almost 

 entirely of street sweepings which had at different times been laid on as a top-dressing. 

 Though none were half-grown, nearly all had the characteristics of old age, many 

 were rotten at the butt, and few were wholly sound. The more thrifty and manage- 

 able of them were retransplanted in 1875, and under more favorable conditions, pres- 

 ently to be stated, the larger part of them now appear rejuvenated. AVhen moved 

 they were generally from 8 to 15 inches in diameter of trunk. 



Except under the "'barbacue trees" the entire ground east of the Capitol, and all 

 that newly planted in the west, has been regraded. Near the eastern boundary the 

 old surface was eight feet higher than at present; the Capitol standiug at the foot of 

 a long slope. The revised grade having been attained, the ground was thoroughly 

 drained with collared, cylindrical tile, and trench-plowed and subsoiled to a depth of 

 two feet or more from the present surface. (Iu the outer parts where evergreen thick- 

 ets under scattered deciduous trees were to be attempted, fully three feet, and here 

 the liming was omitted.) It was then ridged up and exposed, to a winter's frost, 

 dressed with oyster-shell lime, and with swamp muck previously treated with salt and 

 lime, then plowed, harrowed, and rolled and plowed again. The old surface soil was 

 laid upon this improved subsoil with a sufficient addition of the same poor soil drawn 

 from without the ground to make the stratum one foot (loose) in depth. With this 

 well pulverized, a compost of stable manure and prepared swamp muck was mixed. 

 It is still found to have too much of the quality ascribed to the original by Wolcott, 

 quickly drying very hard. It would seem, however, to be wholesome and sufficiently 

 friable for the growth of the trees planted ; the death of all the few that have failed 

 being reasonably attributed to gas leaks, severe wounds, or to extraordinary cold, or 

 to a severe attack of vermin before their recovery from the shock of removal. It is 

 hoped that the more northern trees have been induced to root so deeply as to suffer 

 less than they usually do in Washington during periods of extreme heat and drought, 

 and that, in view of the thorough preparation and large outlay for the purpose, 

 the methods of administration will hereafter be more continuously favorable than 

 they had been for the longevity of the trees and their attaining the proper full stature 

 of their families. 



THE PRESENT DESIGN. 



Questions why, in the present scheme, certain trees and plants have been taken for 

 the Capitol ground and others neglected, and why certain dispositions of trees have 

 been made and others, offering obvious advantages in some respects, avoided, maybe 

 best answered in a general way by a relation of the leading motives of the design, 

 some of which it is evident do not spontaneously occur to many inquirers. 



The ground is in design part of the Capitol, but in all respects subsidiary to the 

 central structure. The primary motives of its design are, therefore, that, first, of con- 

 venience of business of and with Congress and the Supreme Court, and, second, that 

 of supporting and presenting to advantage a great national monument. 



The problem of convenience to be met in the plan of the ground lay iu the require- 

 ment to supply ready access to the different entrances to the buildiug from the twenty- 

 one streets by which the boundary of the ground, was to be reached from the city. 

 The number of font and of carriage entrances is forty-six, and, as the entire space to 

 be crossed between these and the open court and the terrace, upon which doors of the 

 Capitol open, is but forty-six acres in extent, it had to be cut up so much as to put 

 ordinary landscape gardening ideals of breadth and repose of surface, applicable to a 



