ESTABLISHMENT OF A NATIONAL BOTANIC GARDEN. 15 



Mr. Fess. I agree with you, if it can be done. 



Dr. Brittox. I do not see why you should not, at this stage of civ- 

 ilization. You are all looking to science practically to control the 

 world. Science does control the world at the present time, except in 

 its government. You can take that from me. I think you will find I 

 am right. 



Mr. Fess. I agree with you. 



Dr. Brittox. Science controls your hygiene; controls your trans- 

 portation and your communication. 



The Chairman. You do not mean that as a partisan remark, I 

 trust ( [Laughter.] 



Dr. Brittox. Xo ; there is no partisanship intended. I am only 

 speaking from the standpoint of a man of science. 



STATEMENT OE MR. DAVID FAIRCHILD, UNITED STATES DEPART- 

 MENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



The Chairman. State your position, Mr. Fairchild. 



Mr. Fairchild. I am in charge of the Office of Foreign Seed and 

 Plant Introduction. ' 



The Chairman. How long have you been in the department? 



Mr. Fairchied. Thirty-one years. 



The Chairman. You may proceed. 



Mr. Fairchild. It seems to me that one of the greatest practical 

 uses of the botanical garden is to furnish seeds for the commercial 

 users of plants. In connection with my work I have had an oppor- 

 tunity of visiting 35 of these botanical gardens in differents parts 

 of the world, and as illustrating the tremendous value of a botanical 

 garden I would like to read into the record two noted cases of their 

 use: one. that of the cinchona, which was established in the gardens 

 of Buitenzorg, Java, which has resulted in the establishment of the 

 monopoly in cinchona, which those of you who are familiar with 

 the actions of the War Trade Board know was a very serious matter 

 during the war. The shifting of the center of the production of 

 quinine from the wild forests of Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia to 

 the cultivated plantations of Java was started from seeds introduced 

 into the Dutch East Indies from South America. I was in Java 

 when the first cinchona bark was turned commercially into the drug 

 quinine in Java. I saw the industry start. 



India rubber has grown in our time from a wild product, gathered 

 by native Indians on the Amazon, to the product of over 2,000,000 

 acres of plantation rubber in the Dutch East Indies and the British 

 East Indian possessions. The original trees are still standing of 

 this Para rubber from which the seed was gathered, and the Dutch 

 plant breeder, Dr. Cramers, of Java, who visited me this last winter, 

 told me the only trouble was that the original introducer brought 

 the seeds from only one tree and there are better strains of rubber 

 trees in Brazil. The seed has been disseminated from this one tree 

 standing in that botanical garden. 



Of course, those two cases are tropical ones. But the same thing 

 applies to our own northern crops. I returned from the Arnold 

 Arboretum region less than a week ago, after a conference with Prof. 

 Sargent with regard to the securing of all the pear seeds which we 



