ESTABLISHMENT OF A NATIONAL BOTANIC GARDEN. 7 



Pennsylvania to erect a memorial to Gen. Meade, and the Meade 

 Memorial Commission, consisting of the Secretary of War, the chair- 

 man of the Senate Committee on the Library, and the chairman of 

 the House Committee on the Library, located that memorial in the 

 Botanical Garden area. Congress located both of those memorials 

 in the Botanical Garden area, with the idea that ultimately the plan 

 of L'Enfant for an approach to the Capitol from the west would be 

 restored, and that the garden should become such an approach to 

 the Capitol. It would also become the head of the Mall system. 



The House did not act on the Gallinger Bill, and no action by 

 Congress has been taken subsequently. Senator Moses introduced 

 a bill similar to the Gallinger bill, but with fewer restrictions than 

 were in the Gallinger bill. The Gallinger bill provided that the 

 roads and walks as laid down in the plan of Washington should be 

 maintained in any enlargement of the Botanical Garden. When 

 the Commission of Fine Arts came to study the question, they found 

 that the area was insufficent for a botanical garden of the kind 

 which the United States ought to support. 



Senator Williams. Allow me to say here that Senator Gallinger's 

 intention, and the intention of the Senate committee, was not to make 

 this a great botanical garden- It was merely to preserve here at 

 the foot of the Capitol this little flower garden, which was a source 

 of great instruction and profit and pleasure to the school children 

 and people and laboring men of Washington, and whether they put 

 a botanical garden out at Bock Creek Park or elsewhere, still to 

 preserve this little flower garden. There was no idea in his mind, 

 and none in mine, of substituting this for what would finally be 

 the great Washington Botanical Garden, either in Bock Creek Park 

 or somewhere else. 



Mr. Moore. That is the way I understood it generally. The ques- 

 tion came up as to whether the time has not arrived now when 

 changes must be made so as to get an adequate botanical garden. 



Senator Williams. He and I were both very emphatically of the 

 opinion that whether we established a botanical garden or not, this 

 little flower garden ought not to be interferred with except to the 

 extent necessary to put the roads through contemplated in the great 

 plan in connection with the Mall. 



Mr. Moore. That simplifies the matter very much. This morning 

 we are going to ask the committee to consider the question first as 

 to what a botanical garden corresponding to the needs of the pres- 

 ent day should be, and if the United States is going to maintain a 

 botanical garden, where an adequate botanic garden may be located. 

 This garden was begun in 1820. It has developed very slowly. 

 Some relocation for it must be found, because the greenhouses 

 are overcrowded, and the space is insufficient to accommodate 

 the Grant Memorial and the Meade Memorial and the Botanical 

 Garden. 



I ask the chairman first to call Dr. X. L. Britton. director of the 

 New York Botanical Garden. 



Senator Kxox. Before you sit down, Mr. Moore, will you tell me 

 what became of the project of erecting a monument to Gen. Meade 

 in the Botanical Garden? 



Mr. Moore. It is progressing very favorably indeed. The Com- 

 mission of Fine Arts has approved the model which was made by 



