Bailey
was an outstanding author, botanist, and
horticulturist.
He was born at South Haven, Michigan, and was
reared on a farm. Bailey attended Michigan
Agricultural College, now Michigan State University,
where he graduated in 1882. He received the L.L.D.
from the University of Wisconsin in 1907, and other
honorary degrees from various colleges and
universities.
He was an assistant of Asa Gray, Professor of
Botany at Harvard University in 1882-83 and Professor
of Horticulture and Landscape Gardening at Michigan
Agricultural College from 1885-88. He became professor
of Horticulture at Cornell University in 1888, a post
he held until 1903 when he became Dean and Director.
He gave up this position in 1913 to make explorations
and study various plant forms and species of
horticultural importance. He established the Bailey
Hortorium at Ithaca, New York, where he spent the last
years of his life.
He received numerous medals from national and
foreign societies and was a member of domestic and
foreign scientific, botanical, and horticultural
societies.
Among the books of which he was the author may be
listed the following:
The Horticulturists Rule book (1890)
The Nursery Book (1891)
American Grape Training (1893)
Plant Breeding(1895)
Survival of the Unlike (1896)
The Forcing Book (1897)
Principles of Fruit Growing (1897)
Evolution of Our Native Fruits (1898)
The Pruning Book (1898)
Lessons with Plants (1898)
Principles of Agriculture (1898)
Principles of Vegetable Gardening (1901)
The Pruning Book (1906)
The Training of Farmers (1910)
Manual of Gardening (1910)
Outlook to Nature (1911) and (1924)
The State and the Farmer (1913)
Pruning Manual (1916)
Farm and Garden Rule Book (1920)
The Garden Lover (1928)
Hortus First (1930)
The Cultivated Conifers (1933)
How Plants Get Their Names (1933)
Gardener's Handbook (1934)
The Garden of Pinks (1938)
The Garden of Larkspurs (1939)
Hortus Second (1941)
The Holy Earth (1943)
Manual of Cultivated Plants (1924) and
(1949)
Dr. Bailey was voted one of the three outstanding
living horticulturists several years prior to his
death.
He was editor of Cyclopedia of American
Horticulture six volumes (reprinted three volumes,
1910-1932); Rural Science series; and Rural
Textbook series.
