Identifier: picturesquewas00moor (find matches)
Title: Picturesque Washington: pen and pencil sketches of its scenery, history, traditions, public and social life, with graphic descriptions of the Capitol and Congress, the White House, and the government departments ..
Year: 1884 (1880s)
Authors: Moore, Joseph West
Subjects: Washington (D.C.)
Publisher: Providence : J.A. & R.A. Reid
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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ding was erected, that it beganto claim attention. At that time Congress commenced to make an-nual appropriations for it, and it was enriched by having placed in itthe extensive and valuable botanical collections brought to Washingtonby the Wilkes Exploring Expedition from southern climes. Nothingnow remains of these collections save a Jujube tree. During thepast twenty years the rarest and most beautiful plants have beengathered from all parts of the world, and the national garden is atpresent the equal in many respects of the famous gardens of Europe.Within the enclosure of ten acres are small houses for the growing ofplants, and a grand central conservatory three hundred feet in length,with a huge dome — a veritable palace of glass and iron, with largetransept halls and octagonal pavilions, filled with the choicest floral pro-ductions. It rivals the great conservatory in the Royal Kew Gardenin London, or that on the Chatsworth estate of the Duke of Devon- THE BOTANICAL GARDEN. 85
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shire, and in its archi-tectural design andproportions it is finerthan either. In theavenues of the <jarden is an extensive scien-tific collection of trees,consisting of the bestAmerican and foreignvarieties, and every-where about thegrounds the most val-ued flowers and shrubs are cultivated,tory is the celebrated Bartholdi fountain, which was exhibited at thePhiladelphia Centennial. STATUARY HALL. North of the main conserva- 86 PICTURESQUE WASHINGTON. Visitors throng the garden in winter as well as summer, and it isregarded as one of the attractions of Washington. It is often jocoselycalled the bouquet garden for congressmen. During the annualsession of Congress as many as two thousand bouquets are sent fromit to the wives and fair friends of the statesmen, and when the sessionis finished, each congressman is entitled to take to his home one largebox of choice plants, which privilege is seldom neglected, particularlyas the government pays the cost of transporting the botanical spe

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