Washington is not a city of wealth. It is a city filled with 
public servants whose intellectual interests and whose duties are 
scattered all over the country. It is in this respect different from 
any other capital in the whole world, for every other capital is 
a metropolis. Every spring thousands of investigators scatter 
from Washington to hundreds of field stations, returning in the 
fall to write up the reports of their discoveries. 
If you want to see the man who knows most about the great 
National Parks of the country, you must come to Stephen Mather 
— here, not in one of the parks. If you want to meet the man 
who knows most about the vast Western Appalachian forests 
you must come to Washington and talk with Greeley. If you 
have some specific question about some specific forest tree, Greeley 
will introduce you to Dr. Sudworth, who knows the forest trees of 
America like a book, but cannot grow them in his own little 
yard, even if they would grow there. If it is a question of some 
disease that is attacking a forest or shade tree, you will find the 
man who knows right here in Washington in the person of Dr. 
Metcalf or Dr. Shear or one of their assistants. 
If it is whether a certain species of tree, shrub or flower will 
grow in certain soils, the men most likely to tell you are men 
who spend their summers in the field investigating in a scientific 
manner these soil problems, and conferring with local experi- 
menters on the subject. 
If you want to know where you can get a plant which is not 
to be found in any nurseryman's catalogue in America, you will 
have to come to me and I will do my best to get you that plant, 
wherever in the world it is to be found. If you want to know 
how you can import plants for your gardens without endanger- 
ing your neighbor's orchard by bringing in a new disease, you 
will have to go to my friend, Dr. Marlatt, who is to speak to you 
later this evening. 
This is a city of scientific specialists, quite unique in the 
history of the world. There are more men and women right here 
in Washington engaged in trying to find out the secrets of plant 
growth, or in gathering together the known facts about the 
subject, than in any other spot in the world. And scarcely a 
single one of these specialists can afford to maintain anything 
larger than a dooryarcl and small vegetable garden for his own 
pleasure. They are public servants, these specialists. They are at 
the public's demand at any time, and they answer millions of 
letters a year from all sorts and conditions of men and women. 
They must even reply in courteous terms, repeated a hundred 
times, to crazy people who threaten them through their Congress- 
man and Senator. 
I assume that it is to get in touch with these your great plant 
servants that you have come to the Capital, and, while I am 
authorized to welcome you on the part of the Commissioners of 
10 
