18 ESTABLISHMENT OF A NATIONAL BOTANIC GAEDEN. 



are then in full swing. That is true not only of this region, but of 

 other regions. We have a small one in Miami, which Mr. Swingle 

 and I started, and it has now grown up. The city has grown up 

 around it, and in a few years we will be obliged to move out. 



The Chairman. I should think, as you stated, it would be a good 

 policy for the Government to go a little farther away from a large 

 city. Instead of using expensive land in the city for park pur- 

 poses I should think it would be good enough for your purposes to 

 go a few miles out and get an old farm. 



Mr. Fairchild. That would be quite true if it were not for the fact 

 that here in Washington you have the largest body of scientific men 

 connected with agriculture in the world. 



The Chairman. Ten miles in the country over a good road is not 

 a Aery serious setback in these days. 



Mr. Fairchild. You would think not, but when you think of the 

 breeding of plants, you can not get too close to them, and the general 

 criticism which might be made of the small amount of plant-breeding 

 work done in this country to-day is that it has not been done because 

 these establishments have been too far away from their collections. 

 The Arnold Arboretum has its office in the arboretum itself. Bur- 

 bank lives in his garden, and to my mind, one of the greatest diffi- 

 culties in connection with the development of the Department of 

 Agriculture has been the fact that the department has been in a city, 

 and the environment in which the young men have lived has not been 

 the environment of plants but the environment of office buildings. 

 It is a fact which can not be overstated that it is extremely important 

 to have collections of trees and other plants which when in flower 

 can be visited in a few minutes by the research men of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture. They need near them these collections so that 

 they can become familiar with them or they soon forget all about the 

 living plants and become city laboratory workers. At least, this is 

 the strong tendency, and it ought to be counteracted. 



Mr. Moore. Now, Air. Chairman, we have Mr. Olmsted to speak 

 on the subject of Mount Hamilton, and the general plan for the Dis- 

 trict Mr. Olmsted prepared the plan of 1901, so far as it related to 

 the outlying districts of Washington. 



STATEMENT OF MR. FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED, OF BR00KLLNE, 



MASS. 



Mr. Olmsted. In regard to the point about which Mr. Moore has 

 just asked me to speak, in the report of our commission 20 years 

 ago attention was called to the importance of providing, in connec- 

 tion with the development of the park system of the District of 

 Columbia, for an adequate national botanical, garden and arboretum. 

 Xo attempt was made in that preliminary study to assign a site, or 

 t :• go into the question of where it would be best to do it. The sug- 

 gestion was made of the possibility of using the land in Potomac 

 Park for that purpose, but the whole thing was not carefully studied. 



In going over the Ian Is in the District which seemed better adapted 

 for park purposes in g< neral, including the possibility of a botanical 

 garden and arboretum, than for use for streets and buildings, the 

 Mount Hamilton district was one which I felt then, and have felt 



