ESTABLISHMENT OF A NATIONAL BOTANIC GARDEN. 35 



Mr. Swingle. I do not; I merely say that the department does 

 not now have a suitable place. I think I have not specifically men- 

 tioned in my testimony Mount Hamilton, although I believe Mount 

 Hamilton is' a good site. I believe the Government should have one 

 place where a worthy botanical garden could be built ranking this 

 country not twenty-fifth but first. The Kew garden has given to the 

 world uncounted wealth. 



The Chairman. Have you other speakers ? 



Senator Knox. This is pretty much cumulative. 



The Chairman. I hope you will be as brief as you can now. Unless 

 you have some new points, the thing is simply cumulative ; in the in- 

 terest of time, I wish you would make your statements, as brief as 

 possible. 



STATEMENT OF DR. C. STUART GAGER, DIRECTOR BROOKLYN 

 BOTANIC GARDEN, BROOKLYN, N. Y. 



Dr. Gagee. Mr. Chairman, I shall be very glad to be brief. In 

 fact, there is little more to be said. It seems to me that the subject 

 before us can be divided in three points. First, what is a botanic 

 garden: second, should the United States Government maintain a 

 botanic garden: and third, where should this botanic garden be 

 located? 



It would seem to me from what has been said by preceeding speak- 

 ers that a botanic garden is something more than would be indicated 

 by the name " Botanic Garden " ; it does not mean that such a garden 

 is a specialized kind of park merely ; a botanic garden is not merely 

 a spacious kind of park. Perhaps it would be an extreme saying to 

 say that the park feature is incidental in the development of a 

 botanical garden. That would perhaps be a little extreme, but a 

 botanical garden is not merely a specialized kind of park. That is 

 only one feature. Its distinct object from an educational and scien- 

 tific standpoint is the advancement of definition and knowledge of 

 plants: and that should be adequately provided for by the United 

 States Government, and in order that it may be adequately provided 

 for, it should have the Government behind it. 



The United States, of course, has been backward and behind all 

 other nations in the matter of botanic gardens. For over a hundred 

 years botanic gardens have been regarded in many countries as an 

 important government activity. Coming down on the train I counted 

 up the number of botanic gardens in the United States, and I could 

 only count 14, of which 7 have been established in the past 15 or 20 

 years : and those figures include this so-called pseuclo botanic garden 

 here in "Washington at the present time and two or three very small 

 developments at some of our small colleges, like Mount Holyoke, 

 Mass.. and institutions like that. Great Britain has 12, Austria 

 13. France 22, Italy 27, Germany 36, and all South American coun- 

 tries and the Asiatic countries have had botanic gardens for cen- 

 turies. It seems to me that in that fact alone we may find that there 

 is a fundamental reason why the Government should support and 

 develop botanic gardens. Of course, we recognize that agriculture 

 is the fundamental human industry and realize that every permanent 

 advancement in agriculture has been made only on the basis of what 

 botanical science has contributed. I need hardly go into the neces- 



