NATIONAL ARBORETUM
The movement to establish a National Arboretum was first definitely proposed by Hon. James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture, in his report for the fiscal year 1899—
One in which can be brought together for study all the trees that will grow in Washington, D. C., * * * furnishing complete material for the investigations of the Department of Agriculture, and so managed as to be a perennial means of botanical education.
In 1918 the Commission of Fine Arts, at the request of the House Committee on the Library, made a study of the problem of the location of a proposed botanical garden and arboretum. After an elaborate study, conducted with the help of the Department of Agriculture, the commission recommended the purchase of Mount Hamilton and adjacent land, and Hickey Hill, together with the lands between those heights and the Anacostia marshes, in northeast Washington. The report of the commission encountered opposition, but its logic has prevailed.
MAP OF NATIONAL ARBORETUM PREPARED BY THE NATIONAL COMMISSION OF FINE ARTS
The act providing for the establishment of the National Arboretum, approved March 4, 1927, is one of the few measures that survived the filibuster in the Senate on the closing day of that session, because of the untiring efforts of Senator Charles L. McNary, of Oregon, chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry. Hon. Robert Luce, chairman of the Committee on the Library, handled the bill in the House of Representatives. The sum of $300,000 was authorized by the act for the National Arboretum, and this amount was subsequently appropriated. The act provided also for the appointment by the Secretary of Agriculture of an advisory council in relation to the plan and development of the National Arboretum. To serve on this council the Secretary of Agriculture appointed the following persons:
Frederic A. Delano, Washington, D. C., member of the Board of Regents, Smithsonian Institution.
Henry S. Graves, New Haven, Conn., dean of the School of Forestry, Yale University; fellow of the Society of American Foresters; and formerly president of the American Forestry Association.
Harlan P. Kelsey, Salem, Mass., member and former president of the American Association of Nurserymen.
John C. Merriam, Washington, D. C., president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington; member of the National Academy of Sciences and of the National Research Council.
Mrs. Frank B. Noyes, Washington, D. C., chairman of the District of Columbia committee of the Garden Club of America.
Frederick Law Olmsted, Brookline, Mass., member and former president of the American Society of Landscape Architects.
Mrs. Harold I. Pratt, Glen Cove, Long Island, N. Y., secretary of the Garden Club of America.
Robert Pyle, West Grove, Pa., president of the American Horticultural Society and a director of the Society of American Florists and Ornamental Horticulturists.
Vernon Kellogg, permanent secretary of the National Research Council.
It is proposed to purchase about 500 acres, 400 of which, including Mount Hamilton and adjacent portions of Anacostia Park, have already been secured. Thirty-two distinct varieties of soils suited to the growth of trees and plants have been found in this area.
Due to mild climatic conditions in Washington, at the gateway of the South, where there is neither the extreme cold of the North nor the extreme heat of the South, many varieties of trees and plants of both North and South will grow, making it one of the most favorable localities in the United States for the establishment of a National Arboretum. Many countries which have established an arboretum in their capital cities have provided not only an attractive place of public interest but also the source of millions of dollars in revenue.
THE CAPITOL UPON ITS RESTORATION, 1827