Liberty Hyde Bailey

Liberty Hyde Bailey was instrumental in separating Horticulture from Botany and establishing it as a distinct scientific pursuit. He was a botanist, horticulturalist, plant breeder, traveler and plant explorer, outstanding teacher, astute and successful administrator, lobbyist, rural sociologist, prolific writer and superb editor, environmentalist, philosopher, poet, and visionary.

Born on a farm in Michigan in 1858, Liberty Hyde Bailey graduated from the Michigan Agricultural College with a degree in botany. After working with the renowned botanist Asa Gray at Harvard, he returned to Michigan to teach horticulture and landscape gardening. In 1888, he came to Cornell to build a new curriculum in practical and experimental horticulture. In 1904, the Legislature passed a bill establishing the New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell, and Liberty Hyde Bailey became its first dean. In that role, he established new departments to complement existing fields of study, and appointed Cornell's first women professors. In 1908, Theodore Roosevelt appointed him to chair a presidential Country Life Commission.

Bailey retired from Cornell in 1913, but continued his scientific, practical, and philosophical pursuits, and made his home in Ithaca for the rest of his life. He wrote and edited numerous books, from textbooks to essays and poems. He traveled extensively on botanical collecting trips, and continued his studies of palms, blackberries, grapes, cabbages, pumpkins and squashes. During his lifetime, he received innumerable awards and honors. Liberty Hyde Bailey died in 1954 at the age of ninety-six.