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natural beauty and conservation that the President has appointed, North told Laurance that -- why, this plan of Russell Page's would cost a billion dollars. When Laurance told me this, I said, “Oh, Laurance, that's ridiculous, it couldn't possibly cost more than 65 million.” Laurance said, “Well, all right. Anything under 100 million dollars I'd be for. But a billion is too much.”

Poor Russell Page will be horrified. He has no idea that it would cost anything like . You know, he doesn't think on this scale at all, and Kew Gardens is really quite a modest garden, when you look at it, compared with what he's dreamed up.

Had you known him before?

I hadn't known him before. I had met him, once, But I felt that he was sympathetic, and he has extremely good taste in planting, and he has a wonderful feeling for scale, and I thought that he would come as if from Mars to look at our problem. These are his two suggestions, some of which will bear some fruit, I know.

In the meantime, the 100,000 daffodils that I gave for Rock Creek Park looked very beautiful this spring.

They did indeed -- I saw them.

Did you? Andre Meyer and I anonymously gave a planting of shino cherry trees to arch the drive around Haynes Point, in honor of the President and Mrs. Johnson, and half of them are