problems involved and the values of different woody and other plants for such purposes is most desirable. Investigations in this field are well within the aims, scope, and purpose of the National Arboretum.

Great expansion in commercial interest in economic ornamental horticulture and demand for different and interesting forms of trees and shrubs has greatly increased the pressure on the National Arboretum program. All interests are pressing for breeding, selection, and introduction of new and worthwhile forms of trees, shrubs, and other plants.

II. OBJECTIVES OF NATIONAL ARBORETUM

The objectives of the National Arboretum have been fully stated in the general memorandum of 1947, but to bring them again into clear focus the council here restates these objectives and it is within this context that the research program of the National Arboretum has been reviewed and further recommendations made. The objectives set forth in the 1947 memorandum may be summarized and restated as follows:

1. To investigate new and hardy, economic and ornamental woody plants and their uses;

2. To conduct plant explorations either independently or in cooperation with other agencies and promote the distribution and testing of new or rare stocks of woody plants under diverse soil and climatic conditions;

3. To conduct research in propagation of such stocks and the breeding and genetics of improved varieties of fast growing or disease resistant shade trees and of new, hardy, useful, and ornamental trees and shrubs;

4. To conduct fundamental research in the physiology, genetics, cytology, and environmental relationships of woody plants. The results of such basic research would have important application to agriculture in general;

5. To maintain facilities for plant identification and to aid in the standardization of plant nomenclature;

6. To serve as a national testing ground of woody plant stocks and procedures attendant to their cultivation;

7. To assemble and distribute information pertaining to rare, woody plant resources to be found in other public and private collections in the United States and in other parts of the world;

8. To release reports describing the results of research discoveries and studies conducted at the National Arboretum; and

9. To cooperate with State agricultural experiment stations, botanic gardens, arboretums and similar agencies, and to afford facilities for visiting scientists and commercial growers.

The foregoing objectives should extend hereafter to ornamental herbaceous, as well as woody, plants.

III. RESEARCH FIELDS FOR SPECIAL EMPHASIS

In view of the new developments and expanded interests in the ornamental horticultural field, especially in the last 10 years, the following are recommended as basic projects in the National Arboretum's research program:

1. Exploration for native plants

Exploration for desirable forms of our native trees and shrubs remains still a virgin field for the furnishing of valuable plant material and the saving of much time in breeding and selection operations. National Arboretum should be especially effective. explorations considered in the 1947 outline.

It is a field in which the This is in addition to foreign

2. Testing and evaluation of plant species and varieties

The evaluation of species and clones for horticultural merit, performance, climatic adaptability, disease resistance, etc., is an important and continuing function of an institution of this sort. Its effectiveness is dependent upon completeness of plant representation, techniques and thoroughness of their application to the evaluation process, and adequate dissemination of the information secured. Most ornamental plant groups, especially the larger ones, need continuing or periodic reappraisal. Current work with the larger collections of azaleas, hollies, crabapples, etc., should include other groups as they are assembled. For adequate appraisal there is a necessity for wide testing of plants in areas other than Washington. This involves close relationship with other

botanic gardens, arboretums, and plant collections, public and private, throughout the United States.

3. Taxonomic and nomenclatural studies

To be most useful these studies should deal with both living and herbarium specimens. Much work is needed in this field in almost all of the large orna mental plant groups. Among other needed results would be the clearing up of much of the confusing duplication in names, as well as incorrect designation of many plants in nursery catalogs and in horticultural and botanical literature. Substantiation of cultivar names requires historical research, the determination, recording and publication of distinguishing characters, and, whenever possible, the preservation of specimens, fully documented, to serve as permanent records for future consultation. Separate research will be initially required to deter mine the most satisfactory ways of preserving or recording the necessary permanent information needed for each plant group.

Limited taxonomic research is expected to remain a necessary and continuing part of the National Arboretum program. Such research will deal primarily with genera of potential horticultural or economic importance in the United States and may require principal major slanting in the direction of biosystematie studies involving the variation, ecology, geography and climatic distribution of important taxons, as well as the reworking of critical genera as may seem necessary. The yardstick of such research should be the measure of its application to horticultural-botanical problems of the general program of the National Arboretum rather than its contribution to botanical knowledge alone. A start has been made in native hollies, azaleas, and other genera and such work should be expanded as opportunity permits.

4. Herbarium

To be an effective tool the herbarium should include wild forms of cultivated plants as well as varieties derived from them. The National Arboretum herbarium already contains many important plant groups not available elsewhere. It is necessary that these be maintained and expanded.

5. Plant breeding and selection

The production of improved forms of woody ornamentals by breeding and selection is regarded as one of the most potentially useful services that the Arboretum can perform. It is a field of enormous opportunity. Few private or State institutions are engaged in it and very few commercial organizations, due chiefly to the time factor involved, as compared with herbaceous plants. The need is evident and the choice of material is virtually unlimited for the produc tion of better vines, groundcovers, broadleaf evergreens, flowering shrubs, trees and shrubs for fall foliage effect, shade trees, street trees, and the like.

The steady inroads by disease in our native elms in the Midwest and the East, the widening losses in native oaks in the Midwest, are striking examples of the change that is taking place in our varied landscape. Already park, woodland, town and city are registering telltale losses. Replacements for these disappearing species must be found, studied, tested, distributed and planted if our natural arboreal heritage is to continue to add beauty and comfort to our living.

A start has already been made at the National Arboretum in Holly, with minor work in Magnolia, Azalea, and Rhododendron. Recommended for early con sideration are Camellia (particularly for cold hardiness), Ceanothus, Clematis, Cornus, Cotoneaster, crabapples, Prunus, and Euonymus. The Egolf collection of Viburnum is assembled at the National Arboretum (with latest European additions) and would be available for use.

Research in cytology and genetics bears direct relationship to the above program and should be undertaken to the extent that it can contribute to the general objectives and cannot be provided by other units of the Crops Research Division. Cytological information will certainly be vitally necessary for each plant group involved in the breeding program.

6. Hardiness studies

Research in this field will necessarily tie closely to problems of testing and evaluation as well as to plant breeding. Basic research on the hardiness of woody ornamentals could be amply justified while especially needed in the development of suitable techniques for the laboratory testing of existing cultivars and of potential breeding parents and progenies. This will require cooperative testing with other botanic gardens, arboretums, and plant collections, public and private, throughout the United States.

7. Propagation studies

There are numerous unresolved problems in the propagation of woody ornamentals involving the cutting propagation of difficult-to-root groups as deciduous azaleas, many conifers, shade trees, etc., seed problems with numerous species, and graft-stock relationships which are virtually unknown in the field of ornamentals. Basic research on the physiology of root initiation is still very much needed and as a longtime undertaking should eventually provide the most significant and valuable information. Basic studies on many groups of woody plant materials await investigation by the Department of Agriculture and other research agencies. In the meantime the National Arboretum must carry on investigations directly related to the plant material which it handles, if its program is to progress. For more immediate results work could well be undertaken in the first-stated categories. A start has been made, with promising results, in the cutting propagation of deciduous azaleas. Such work should be expanded as opportunity permits.

8. Additional fields

Many nutritional problems remain with specific plants and plant groups, particularly with less common species and often with direct relation to cultural methods. Certain cultural problems will merit investigation in relation to the use of selected plants for normal landscape purposes and problems of pruning, irrigation, frost protection, mulching, and others.

Insect and disease problems will remain a continuing part of National Arboretum maintenance as well as subjects for research in frequent individual cases. Personnel to handle such matters should be permanently stationed at the Arboretum, whether as mebers of is normal staff or as representatives of other sections of the Agricultural Research Service. Perhaps, also, on a cooperating basis with agricultural engineering a program in horticultural engineering might very well be undertaken. There is a real need for impartial information on motorized equipment by other botanic gardens, no less than by the general public.

9. Staff

Toward an early strengthening of the present research situation at the National Arboretum, the following staff additions might be considered:

(1) A taxonomist to further the work in horitcultural evaluation and nomenclature of species and horticultural clones.

(2) A physiologist of properly slanted background to plan an adequate hardiness-testing program coordinated with necessary facilities at a new greenhouse range and to provide temporary assistance in propagation.

(3) A cytologist to canvass materials for the breeding projects and to assist as necessary in the breeding program.

10. Cooperation with other agencies

Reference has been made throughout this report to the necessity of cooperation with other plant research agencies for optimum results from the National Arboretum activities. The field of ornamental horticulture is so great and the need for research so imperative that the closest cooperation and interchange of ideas and observations is needed if the full potential of the highly qualified staff of the United States Department of Agriculture is to make maximum contributions.

As the Arboretum develops it has a peculiarly favored place to play in contributing to the research programs of public and private plant institutions, as well as commercial concerns, in this country and abroad.

In this development the National Arboretum should have the full interest, sympathetic support, and active cooperation of the Department of Agriculture. The Arboretum has a unique and challenging place to play in American horticulture, for which the ground work has already been laid.

IV. CONCLUSIONS

That the above research objectives of the National Arboretum may be reached in the visible future, the following actions are taken and recommendations are made:

(1) The report on the Objectives of the National Arboretum and the Scope of Its Activities, previously submitted to the Secretary of Agriculture and approved by the Secretary, March 19, 1947 (appendix I), is reaffirmed.

(2) The Kraus report on a Program of Research, as approved by the Advisory Council at its meeting on October 26-27, 1953 (appendix II), is reaffirmed and made a part of this statement.

(3) To effectuate the closest sort of cooperation and coordination of effort between various research divisions of the Department, it is recommended that consideration be given by the Department to periodic meetings between the staffs of the pertinent divisions, for the purpose of planning and reporting progress of research projects, exchanging research information and ideas, and discussing and resolving any conflict of interests or unnecessary duplication of research that may arise or which may be found to exist.

(4) The Ryerson report on scientific staff as presented to the Council on November 7, 1947 (appendix III) is incorporated as a part of this statement and is recommended as a basic approach to staff organization and the technical staff needed to implement the research program. Also recommended is the early addition to the staff of an information specialist to relieve the technical research staff of the public informational services required and expected from such a public service institution, in handling mail and telephone inquiries for information from the general public, and appearing before interested groups of professional or amateur horticulturists.

(5) It is recommended that closer cooperation be established between the National Arboretum and other similar institutions, for the purpose of exchanging ideas and plant materials, and for the discussion of arrangements for the conduct of cooperative research projects between one or more such institutions. This might lead to an elimination of duplication of effort, but conversely might lead to further duplication of certain phases of research activity where such duplication may be considered desirable.

(6) It is recommended that consideration be given to having the National Arboretum be the focal point for information on living ornamental plant collections of the world.

(7) It is recommended that the National Arboretum be made a repository for living woody plant collections, insofar as possible, so that valuable genes may be retained for plant breeders.

Following consideration of the report of its Committee on Research, the National Arboretum Advisory Council, at its meeting in Washington, D. C., on October 7, 1957, adopted the foregoing statement on research activities of the United States National Arboretum and directed that the statement be transmitted to the Honorable Ezra Taft Benson, Secretary of Agriculture, as recommendations of Council made pursuant to the Organic Act of the National Arboretum (44 Stat. 1422, sec. 4).

The Committee on Research was composed of Dr. Knowles A. Ryerson, of Berkeley, Calif., chairman, Dr. H. Harold Hume, of Gainesville, Fla., and Dr. Richard P. White, of Washington, D. C.

FREDERIC P. LEE, Chairman, National Arboretum Advisory Council. Mr. LEE. I think the first nine pages are what you want. You may want to omit the appendixes. That is all I have, gentlemen, unless you have some questions, of course.

Mr. MARSHALL. We thank you for appearing before the committee. I wish to assure you that this committee will continue to be interested in the completion of the arboretum.

Mr. LEE. Thank you, sir.

Mr. ANDERSON. Thank you, Mr. Lee.

SOIL CONSERVATION SERVICE

WITNESSES

HON. HAROLD D. COOLEY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA AND CHAIRMAN OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE

HON. W. ROBERT POAGE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS

E. Y. FLOYD, RESIDENT OF THE STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA

Mr. WHITTEN. We have with us this afternoon the distinguished chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Mr. Harold Cooley, and the vice chairman, Mr. W. R. Poage.

We know of their interest and knowledge on agricultural matters, we are always interested in their views, and any information that they may bring us.

We are glad for their statements to be in the hearings of the subcommitte at all times.

Mr. ANDERSEN. Will you yield, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. WHITTEN. Yes.

Mr. ANDERSEN. I do not know of any two Members of Congress whom I am more pleased to see come before our subcommittee than these two gentlemen.

Mr. COOLEY. Thank you gentlemen very much.

STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE HAROLD D. COOLEY

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I shall trespass but briefly upon your time. I have a prepared statement, which I shall file, but which I shall not attempt to read because it is more or less a reiteration of things with which you are familiar.

I want to present one of my distinguished constituents, who is with us who will also make a brief statement and file a statement for the record.

As chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture, I do not want you gentlemen to use all the compliments. I want, on behalf of our committee, to compliment all the members of this committee for the manner in which they have served the cause of agriculture. I know this committee has tried to keep partisan politics out of the deliberations of this committee just as our committee has tried to do in the past and will try to do in the future.

I shall now address myself to the agricultural-conservation program. I think that the program is probably more important to my section of the country than any other section in America, because in my district we grow five of the basic commodities. We grow all of the basic commodities except rice, and all of these programs are administered by the local ASC committee.

I do not know of any program that is more popular in North Carolina than the ACP program.

I do not know of any agricultural program which has contributed more to the wealth of America than the ACP program. We started out with the ACP program to rebuild the agricultural lands of America, and I think that anybody who is familiar with the situation now