CHAPTER III 



THE UNITED STATES BOTANIC GARDEN: 

 NEW FACILITIES IN A FAMILIAR SETTING 



By mid-May 1850, Congress had authorized the expend- 

 iture of $5,000 for the construction of a botanical con- 

 servatory on the Mall. 1 That fall, the plants housed in 

 the Patent Office greenhouse were moved to the new struc- 

 ture, which had been built on the exact site previously 

 occupied by the Columbian Institute's botanic garden. 



Together the conservatory and accompanying grounds 

 occupied ten acres extending from First to Third Streets 

 between Pennsylvania and Maryland Avenues, Southwest. 

 Although the new site "offered ample room for the care and 

 preservation of the botanical collection, ,, the funds Congress 

 had appropriated for the project were not sufficient to pro- 

 vide for an adequate drainage system. 2 As a consequence, 

 the new garden was plagued with many of the same prob- 

 lems that the Columbian Institute had faced. During the thir- 

 teen years since the Institute had used the site, it had become 

 an abysmal swamp, subject to the ebb and flow of the Tiber 

 Creek that traversed the property, and had been used as a 

 dumping ground. All that remained of the original garden 

 were two post oaks (Quercus stellata). 



William D. Brackenridge continued to be in charge of 

 the botanic collection at the new facilities and retained the 

 title of horticulturist until the summer of 1854. Captain 

 Charles Wilkes remained as supervisor of the new green- 

 houses until that fall. 3 



1 9 Stat. 427. The appropriation for the construction of the new green- 

 houses was expended under the direction of the Joint Committee on the 

 Library. 



2 Rathbun, The Columbian Institute, pp. 52-53. 



3 Ibid., pp. 52-54. In 1855, William Brackenridge purchased thirty 

 acres near Baltimore, where he lived until his death on February 3, 1893. 

 For several years he was "horticultural editor of the American Farmer, but 

 he spent most of his energies as a nurseryman and landscape architect." 

 Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds., Dictionary of American Biog- 

 raphy, 20 vols., New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1928-1937, v. 2, p. 

 546. See also W.D. Brackenridge, Gardner's Age, v. 26, December 1884, 

 p. 376; and W.D. Brackenridge, Meehan's Monthly, v. 3, March 3, 1893, 

 p. 47. 



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