Extracts from Cornell Memorial Statement for Professor Liberty Hyde Bailey
March 15, 1858 — December 25, 1954
"From 1923 to 1949 he published over one hundred scientific papers. These were mostly extended papers, concerning revisions of genera. Bailey became a specialist in the systematics of the palms and the blackberries. He also published revision of such genera as Vitis (the grapes), Brassica (the cabbages and kales), Cucurbita (the pumpkins, squashes), Hosta (the plantain-lilies), and horticultural monographs of lesser botanical import on Dianthus, Delphinium, Campanula, and the gourds.
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On the retirement of Isaac P. Roberts in 1903, Bailey became the second Director of the College of Agriculture, financed largely by the University (whose funds for the College were supplemented by federal monies). Long before this he had been active throughout the state and worked for the day when Cornell’s College of Agriculture should be largely state supported and become the New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell University. This goal was achieved in May 1904. For the next decade his major contributions were those of an administrator. During this period he set up many new departments: Experimental Plant Biology (but later coined for it the new name of Plant Breeding), Soils, Plant Pathology, and Ornamental Horticulture. A department of Plant Physiology was founded by him which, early in 1913, he expanded into a balanced Department of Botany. Following his change of the name domestic science to home economics, there was his successful effort in 1912 to get University faculty approval for his promotion of a woman, for the first time in Cornell history, to the rank of full professor (in home economics). The Department of Home Economics within the College of Agriculture he had established in 1907.
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Agriculture during the last half-century owed much to Bailey the editor. Just as there was a lack of modern horticultural books when he came to Cornell in 1888, so also was there a comparable lack of books in other fields of agriculture. During the period of 1890-1940 he edited 117 titles by 99 authors from all over the country, covering subjects in agronomy, economics, botany, pomology, animal husbandry, dairy industry, soils and fertilizers, plant pathology, commercial floriculture, and home economics. In 1890, Bailey accepted the editorship of the popular monthly, American Garden. Again in 1901 he accepted the editorship of Country Life in America.
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Students at the College during Dr. Bailey’s twenty-five years as Professor and Dean remember to a man his personable and understanding affection for them as individuals. Sunday evenings his home was open to his students, who came and were inspired by his informal talks, recitations of poetry, and readings from such menas Poe, Whitman, Arnold, Lanier and Emerson. Later, as the group became too large, these gatherings became bimonthly “Assemblies” first in Barnes and later in Roberts Hall, patronized by students and faculty alike."