Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

Arboretum of Kumsusan Memorial Palace, Plant-breeding Farm

Korean Central News Agency of DPRK via Korea News Service (KNS)

   Pyongyang, August 1 (KCNA) -- The arboretum of Kumsusan Memorial Palace in Pyongyang has been built as a comprehensive plant-breeding farm. It was set up on March 13, Juche 85 (1996), in accordance with the Korean people's moral obligation to hold President Kim Il Sung in high esteem forever.
    It covers more than a hundred hectares.
    Over 150,000 tall trees and flower shrubs of about 300 species including more than 5,000 trees of some 30 species sent by various countries across the world have been planted there over the last decade.
    Among them are Magnolia stellata, Magnolia liliflora, Magnolia denudate, Weigela hortensis form which had been acclimatized in the country.
    The plants have been not arranged in accordance with the academic study system but arranged with the main emphasis on the trees and shrubs related to the improvement of the people's living standard for which the President had striven in his lifetime. The oil-bearing tree forest, fibre and pulp-wood forest, wild fruit tree forest and timber forest blend well with a needle-leaf tree forest for scenic beauty.
    Hedges have been created with good species of shrubs along the street in front of the palace. And growing on the both sides of the street are a large number of pine-nut, metasequoia, gingko, maple, Weigela coraeensis and clove trees.
    In the last spring, tens of thousands of trees including poplar and Acer saccharinum trees were transplanted, over 150,000 square meters of land were rezoned and ten-thousand and thousands of square meters of land was covered with turf.
    The arboretum is also worthy of scientific researches.