REPORT OF ARCHITECT OF UNITED STATES CAPITOL. 13 



Rock Creek, cannot in some way be protected against the clestrnctiveness which the 

 hope of the smallest private pecuniary profit is liable at any moment to bring- upon 

 them. Samples may be already found of the hateful desert which may be thus quickly 

 substituted. 



The scope of the foregoing advice has been limited to trees and woody plants. 

 Those who wish to have a more extended list of what may be looked for, as well as all 

 interested, whether as botanists or as lovers of nature in local, annual, perennial 

 plants, will find the best of aid in a government publication prepared by Mr. Lester 

 F. Ward, of the Smithsonian Institution (Guide to the Flora of Washington — Bulle- 

 tin No. •22, of the National Museum). 



Of the banks of the Potomac above referred to, Mr. Ward says: " The beauty of 

 their natural flower-gardens in the months of April and May is unequaled in my ex- 

 perience." Elsewhere he states that fifty several sorts of plants may usually be found 

 in flower before the 1st of April (p. 31), that is to say, before, in the latitude of Albany, 

 the ground mav ] ie unlocked from ice. 



HISTORICAL NOTES OF THE CAPITOL GROUND. 



The intelligent visitor, reflecting that it is nearly ninety years since the site of the 

 Capitol was determined, and more than eighty since Congress first held its sessions 

 upon it, will need some explanation of its present sylvan juvenility. 



Since building work first began upon it several efforts for the improA'ement of the 

 ground have been made before the present, but no plan for the purpose has long been 

 adhered to, and little of the work done has been adapted to secure lastingly satisfac ■ 

 t#ry results. There is, mainly in consequence of a wavering policy and make-shift 

 temporizing operations, but one tree on the ground that yet approaches a condition 

 of tree majesty, and beside it probably not one of fifty years' growth from the seed — 

 not a dozen often years' healthy, thrifty, and unmutilated growth. It may be added 

 that many hundred trees are known to have been planted in the streets of the city 

 early in the century, of which not one remains alive, nor is it probable that one was 

 ever allowed a full development of its proper beauty. Yet, to show what easily might 

 have beeu, if due judgment and painstaking had been used, it is enough that one 

 planted tree of even an earlier date may be pointed to, which is yet in the full vigor 

 of its growth. (The " Washington elm '' on the Capitol ground, originally a street 

 .■side tree.) 



The following notes, chiefly upon the past misfortunes of the nation in its Capitol 

 ground, have been largely based on conversations with the late venerable Dr. J. B. 

 Blake, sometime Commissioner of Public Grounds. 



When government, near the close of the last century, took possession of the site of 

 the Capitol, it was a sterile place, partly overgrown with " scrub oak." The soil was 

 described (by Oliver Wolcott) as an "exceedingly stiff clay, becoming dust in dry and 

 mortar in rainy weather." For a number of years the ground about the Capitol was 

 treated as a common, roads crossing it in all directions, and a map of the period in- 

 dicates an intention to treat it permanently as an open public place. The year be- 

 fore his death, Washington built the brick house, still standing prominently, but 

 injured by recent, additions, a little to the north of the Capitol. A picture showing 

 this house, with a young plantation of trees (none now living) between it and the 

 Capitol, together with an autograph letter about it from Washington to his business 

 agent, may be seen in the Towner division of the National Library. The first local 

 improvement ordered by Congress, after occupying the rooms partially prepared for 

 it in the incomplete Capitol, was a walk to be made between these and Georgetown 

 i West Washington), where, there being yet no comfortable houses nearer, most of the 

 members lodged. The Capitol and the house of Washington had both been built 

 upon the assumption that the future city, which Washington avoided calling by his 

 own name, continuing to use the original designation of the "Federal City," would 

 arise on the higher ground to the eastward. Both buildings were expected to stand 

 as far as practicable in its outskirts, backing upon the turbid creek with swampy 

 borders which then flowed along the base of the Capitol Hill. When this stream was 

 in freshet it was not fordable, and members of Congress were often compelled to hitch 

 their riding horses on the further side and cross it, first, on fallen trees, afterwards on 

 a foot-bridge. There was an alder swamp where the Botanic Garden is now, which 

 spread also far along the site of Pennsylvania avenue. Tall woods on its border shut 

 off the views of the ground south and west of it. This wood, said to contain many 

 noble trees, mostly oaks, was felled for fire-wood, by permission of Congress, as a 

 measure of economy, sometime after the war of 1812. 



These circumstances may give a little clue to the habit at the oulset adopted, and 

 "f which Congress has since never been wholly disembarrassed, of regardingthe ground 



