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Liberty Hyde Bailey, Jr.
was born in South Haven,
Mich. in 1858, earned a bachelor’s degree at Michigan Agricultural
College in 1882, and was named chair of the new Department of Horticulture
and Landscape Gardening at MAC in 1885, after working with Asa Gray,
botanist at Harvard. While at
MAC he designed the first building dedicated to the
teaching of, and research on, horticulture in America, now named
Eustace-Cole Hall. Before it
was completed, he left to become Professor of General and Experimental
Horticulture at Cornell University, where he spent the remainder of his
long and distinguished career.
He was named Dean of the College of Agriculture in 1903, and was
largely responsible for the establishment by the legislature of the State
College of Agriculture at Ithaca in 1904.
He retired in 1913 at the age of 55, in keeping with his goal of
spending 25 years gaining an education, 25 years working in his
profession, and 25 years just doing what he wanted to do.
Although most of his career was spent at Cornell, Michigan claims
him as his native son, as the seed-time for his ideas on teaching,
research and public service began here and his childhood home in South
Haven is now a National
and Michigan Historic Site
Bailey became known as the “Dean of American
Horticulture”, serving as president of several societies, including the
American Society for Horticultural
Science, the American Pomological Society,
and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
He was a prolific writer, contributing
more than 1200 papers and writing or editing almost 200 books,
including both practical guides on pruning, nursery management, and fruit
culture, and the monumental Cyclopedia
of Horticulture, and Hortus,
the latter with daughter Ethel Zoe Bailey as co-editor.
He became the world authority on the classification of Carex, Rubus, the
Cucurbitaceae, and the New World palms, and his writings were
major contributions to both horticulture and botany.
His donation of his private
collection of some 125,000 specimens of plants and 3000 books
to Cornell provided the foundation for the Bailey Hortorium. His book “The
Holy Earth” helped set the stage for the ecology movement in
America. President Theodore
Roosevelt appointed him chair of the Commission on Country Life in 1908;
the reports prepared by the Commission led to many improvements in rural
life, including the Cooperative Extension Service and the 4-H Youth
Program.
Bailey’s contributions earned him many honors, both
before and after his death on Christmas Day, 1954 at the age of 97.
In addition to numerous medals, honorary degrees and memberships in
both U.S. and foreign scientific societies, a postage stamp was issued
honoring gardening and horticulture on the 100th anniversary of
his birth. A number of
buildings, both at Michigan State and Cornell, have been named for him, as
well as Bailey School and Bailey St. in E. Lansing.
The Bailey Scholars Program, emphasizing transdisciplinary,
self-directed, and active learning for undergraduates, designed to develop
“the whole person”, was initiated at MSU in the spring of 1998.
His impact on the various branches of horticulture
and botany was summed up by H. B. Tukey, head of the MSU Horticulture
Department from 1945 to 1962, in the following statement:
Those in fruit culture think
of him as a fruit man. Amateur
horticulturists think of him as their special leader.
Agricultural administrators think of him as a dean.
Taxonomic botanists think of him as the great authority on the
classification and nomenclature of horticultural crops and on palms.
Nurserymen think of him as a plant propagator.
In short, his interests were so great, and his coverage so broad,
that he stood as a dozen men – helpful, interested, and a marvelous
friend to all.
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