the United States at home and abroad; (3) the Secretary of 

 the Treasury for transmittal to each custom house or station; 

 (4) the Secretary of the Navy for transmittal to each ship in 

 commission; and (5) the Postmaster General for transmittal 

 to various ports in different parts of the Union. 17 



A month later, Alexander McWilliams and Dr. Staugh- 

 ton presented a report to the Institute entitled "Best Means 

 of Preserving Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral Specimens/' 

 Following their presentation, Asbury Dickins, Secretary of 

 the Institute, drafted a letter to accompany the report. It was 

 the Institute's hope, Dickins stressed, that its botanic garden 

 would in time be able to collect and distribute throughout 

 the United States "not only improved varieties of fruits and 

 esculent and ornamental plants, already cultivated in this 

 country, as well as valuable trees and plants that have been 

 found indigenous in [this country, but also] all the vegeta- 

 ble production of other portions of the world, which can 

 be adapted to the climate, and are desirable either for use 

 or ornament." 18 



Secretary of the Treasury Rush's letter and the "Direc- 

 tions for Putting Up and Transmitting Seeds" were subse- 

 quently reprinted by Washington's Daily National Intelligencer 

 on November 17, 1827, in the hope that their objective "might 

 be better prompted." 19 A week later, the Intelligencer 

 published Dickins' letter and the McWilliams-Staughton 

 report without comment. 20 Then on November 30, the In- 

 telligencer ran a lengthy story on the Institute, placing par- 

 ticular emphasis on the Garden's importance as well as the 

 Administration's and Congress' enthusiasm for the project. 

 "Let our Naval Officers," the Intelligencer urged, 



(as recommended by the present patriotic Administra- 

 tion) bring home from their long cruises in the Mediter- 

 ranean, Pacific, &c. the seeds of every plant indigenous 

 in those countries, but strangers to ours, and present 



17 Minutes of the Columbian Institute, January 21, 1828. 



18 Letter From the Columbian Institute, National Intelligencer, Novem- 

 ber 24, 1827, p. 2. A copy of the McWilliams-Staughton Report is found 

 in Minutes of the Columbian Institute, October 1, 1827, pp. 264-269. Dick- 

 ins' letter appears in Ibid., November 5, 1827, pp. 270-272. 



19 Introduction of Foreign Plants and Seeds, National Intelligencer, 

 November 17, 1827, p. 2. 



20 Letter From the Columbian Institute, p. 2. 



