10 REPORT OF ARCHITECT OF UNITED STATES CAPITOL. 



thus marking the result of sporadic and unsustained legislative efforts, and even of 

 efforts in some cases a little at cross purposes one with another. Yet, taken together 

 and with the natural growths accidentally available to supplement them, these plan- 

 tations promise to be of no little value with respect to the long course of patient study 

 upon which the infant science of American forestry has yet to be brought up. Young 

 as they are, no where else in the country can as wide a range of trees be found equally 

 advanced, and this is of the more national value because of the close dependence of 

 the science of forestry upon that of meteorology and the fact that nowhere else in the 

 country are as full, accurate, precise, and scientifically collated local meteorological 

 records accessible as in Washington. 



Of the government plantations referred to, that of the National Botanic Garden 

 adjoins the Capitol ground on the west. Its germ was a collection made by the Wilkes 

 Exploring Expedition in 1842, of which but one hardy tree remains alive, an invalid 

 Jujube (Zizyphus). The site was and is unsuitable and inadequate for the purpose, 

 and the curator has had and still has to contend with obstacles of many kinds, the dead- 

 liest being a lack of intelligent public interest in the scientific objects of a botanic 

 garden, and an excess of interest in its adventitious and recreative incidents. 



Among the exposed trees, visitors from the North may be glad to have their attention 

 called to those named below.* 



The Botanic Garden is managed directly by Congress through its Library Commit- 

 tees, t 



Half a mile westward is another national collection, managed by the Agricultural 

 Bureau of the Department of the Interior. It includes several hundred sorfcs of hardy 

 trees and shrubs, most of which were planted between 1865 and 1870. The trees can- 

 not yet, of course, begin to exhibit their mature character, but they are well grown 

 for their age and generally of excellent promise, forming the most instructive collec- 

 tion in the country. As the first step toward a national forestry system it must be 

 regretted that the bureau could not have been allowed more space and means. In 

 twenty years, if thrifty, the trees will in many cases be crowding one another. An 

 official list of the trees can be procured. The curator is Mr. William Saunders. 



The ground between the botanic and the agricultural collections, originally planned 

 during the administration of the elder President Adams asa public promenade, under 

 the name of "The Mall." but neglected, and its design gradually lost sight of, is now 

 provisionally divided into two widely different plantations. That nearest the Capi- 

 tol was laid out and planted between 1872 and 1878, by Orville Babcock. colouel of 

 military engineers. It consists of small sections of mixed forestry, with borders of 

 shrubbery trained within formal lines of standard trees, the different sections separated 

 in one direction by straight streets retained from the earlier design, aud in the other 

 by roads of formal curvature with decorative planting near the junctions. Thesurface 

 is generally low, the soil better than that of the other grounds, the trees at present 

 well cured for, and, except a few conifers, t lie removal of which will be a gain, of 

 promising appearance. They are under the office of the Commissioner of Buildings, 

 attached to the ExecutivM Mansion, ai present Colonel A. F. Rockwell, U. S. A. 



West of Colonel Babcock's work is what has been called the Smithsonian Park, but 

 [hough originating in the impulse to which the founding of the Institution of that 

 name gave rise, and contiguous to its building, it has unfortunately never been 

 under the same enlightened management. It should have special and reverent 

 attention, as representing the only essay, strictly speaking, yet made under our gov- 

 ernment in landscape gardening, for though the aim of the Capitol ground planting 

 is more than decorative, it is necessarily too prim and niggling, and is too much 

 controlled by engineering and architectural considerations to be entitled to that full 

 rank. This of the Smithsonian was the last and the only important public work of 

 Downing, who was not only a master of the ait, but distinctly a man of genius, of 

 w bom his country should always be proud. It was designed as a composition of natn- 



*The Bull Bay. or great evergreen Magnolia of the South (Magnolia grandiflora); 

 the Pecan {Carya olivceformis) \ the Whahoo (Ulmm alula); the Black Maple (Acei 

 saecarinum nil/rum), a variety of the su.L, r ar maple growing betteriuthe South than the 

 common Northern kind; good sized specimens of the Colchican Maple (Acer colchicum), 

 from Armenia: the Pride of China, the common avenue tree of the cotton States 

 (Melia azederach); the Asiatic nettle tree (Celtis orb-n lulls) ; the Cedar of Lebanon 

 (Cedrus Lebani); the Cedar of Mount Atlas (C. Ailantica) ; the Cedar of the Sierras 

 (Hbooedrus decurrt «*); Christ's Thorn i Zizyphus vulgaris) : European and Japanese Yews 

 (Taxas bascata strield)) and /'. adpressa and Podocarpus taxifolia', the Chinese Water 

 Pine (Glypto8trobus sineusus : tin Soapberry I Sapindus marginata,) ; and Sterculia pluli- 

 folia. 



i "A library tilled with volumes written by Nature, and which those who have 

 learned the Language of Nature can read and enjoy with a satisfaction as much keener 

 than anything thai man-made hooks can give as it is nearer to the source of all truth." — 

 L. F. Ward. Bulletin of the National Museum, No. 2'2. 



