be reimbursed wholly to the United States by a modification of the 
already authorized plan of the Anacostia Reclamation Project, the 
engineers of which have estimated that by changing their dredging 
plan and including that part of the river flats in the National Botanic 
Garden, they can save $340,000, which is more than the cost of the 
land to be acquired. The garden would then start with 800 acres at 
no more than the price Congress has authorized to be expended upon 
the present Anacostia project. 
No botanic gardens of any note in the world or of any particular 
size are located within cities. Kew Garden, London, was located out- 
side of the city a distance of 12 miles. The city eventually grew 
around it. The Jardin des Plantes, Paris, passed through a similar 
experience. The Botanic Garden at Rio de Janeiro, covering 2000 
acres, is 4 miles from the city, yet is visited by over 100,000 persons a 
year. The Botanic Gardens of Ceylon are 40 miles from any consider- 
able town. The New York Botanical Garden is nearly 9 miles from 
the center of the city, in the Bronx, where it is visited in the flowering 
season by an average of 1000 persons a day. 
The proposed National Botanic Garden to be located 2.00 miles 
to the northeast of the Capitol, is for the benefit of the country at 
large, and in view of the great organizations of the United States 
interested in plant life, who favor and have set forth the need for the 
establishment of such a garden, it is unfair to restrict the area of the 
Botanical Garden of the United States to the very limited area at the 
foot of the Capitol. Even to extend the existing area one or two squares, 
as has been proposed, would be futile, and would be a serious encroach- 
ment on the Mall Plan of the Senate Park Commission Plan of 1901. 
For a full and complete discussion of this project attention is 
invited to the reports of the Hearings before the Joint Congressional 
Committee on the Library, on May 21, 1920, Parts I and 11. 
S- 4485 
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 
June 2, 1920. 
Mr. Brandegee introduced the following bill; which was read twice 
and referred to the Committee on the Library. 
A BILL 
To enlarge the area of lands authorized to be taken for the recla- 
mation of the Anacostia River Flats. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States 
of America in Congress assembled, That Public Act Numbered 145, Sixty-third 
Congress, second session, approved July i, 1914, as continued and amended by 
Public Act Numbered 378, Sixty-fourth Congress, second session, approved 
March 3, 191 7, be, and the same is hereby, amended by extending the taking line 
therein set forth (defining the lands to be acquired for the reclamation and develop- 
ment of the Anacostia River and Flats from the Anacostia Bridge northeast to the 
District line) so that said taking line shall include those pieces and parcels of land 
shown on map numbered thirty-nine, dated May 20, 1920, prepared by the Com- 
mission of Fine Arts, designating the lands to be taken for a National Botanic 
37 
