ESTABLISHMENT OF A NATIONAL BOTANIC GARDEN. 2 7 



STATEMENT OF ME. FREDERICK V. COVILLE, BOTANIST, 

 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Mr. Coville. Mr. Chairman, a botanical garden has its use in the 

 recreation and education of the public, but its greatest use, to my 

 mind, is in relation to plant breeding. I- believe that in the next 50 

 or 100 years we shall make more advance in the development of new 

 plants of use to man by plant breeding than we have made in the 

 whole history of civilization. Scientific men, practical men, are both 

 enormously interested in it. We have found out some of the laws 

 of heredity and we are rapidly putting them into use. 



The Chairman. In what bureau of the Department of Agricul- 

 ture are you located? 



Mr. Coville. In the Bureau of Plant Industry. 



The Chairman. Are you head of it ? 



Mr. Coville. No ; I am the botanist. 



The Chairman Who is the head of it? 



Mr. Coville. Dr. W. A. Taylor. 



We have in the Botanical Society of Washington, which consists 

 of professional botanists, about 200 members, men avIio are engaged 

 in the advancement of civilization by the discovery and application 

 of botanical facts. One of the instruments which we ought to have 

 is a botanical garden. We do not have it at the present time. We 

 have on the grounds of the Department of Agriculture certain 

 greenhouses which we are allowed by law to use temporarily. How 

 soon these will be taken away from us we do not know. Ultimately 

 some public building will be placed on the east side of the Mall oppo- 

 site the Department of Agriculture and then, of course, the green- 

 houses will have to go. If the greenhouses in which we work are not 

 in immediate proximity to our offices, our efficiency suffers. One of 

 the things that I have been able to do personally while attending to 

 extensive duties of other sorts has been to breed certain plants of 

 agricultural interest. The plant to which I have devoted most atten- 

 tion is the blueberry. We have changed the blueberry from a small 

 wild fruit about the size of a pea to a fruit that looks like a Concord 

 grape. The new plants which we have developed will grow in soils 

 which are not used for any other purpose ; soils which are sterile to 

 other plants will grow these improved blueberries. The point I wish 

 to make. Mr. Chairman, is that if I had not had the use of these 

 greenhouses I should never have been able to do this work. These 

 blueberries have yielded at the rate of nearly a thousand dollars an 

 acre, and while the investigation is only a very small item in our 

 scientific work the industry that will grow out of the investigation 

 will be worth millions of dollars. 



The Chairman. Do these berries preserve their taste and quali- 

 ties ? 



Mr. Coville. They do : and by selection we are getting berries 

 that are even superior in flavor to the wild ones. 



This is simply one example of the work we are doing. If there 

 were in Washington a botanical garden of proper equipment, it is 

 inevitable that a great deal of the work of the Department of Agri- 

 culture will ultimately be moved to it or to its neighborhood. It is a 

 question of being intimately associated with the tools with which 

 you are working. 



