The World Was My Garden: Travels of a Plant Explorer

The World Was My Garden: Travels of a Plant Explorer
Item# 978-1-932846-300
$54.95
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Product Description

By David Fairchild

David Fairchild wrote this book to describe his extensive world travels and his work introducing new plant species to the United States. In addition to sharing his legendary tropical botanical expertise, Fairchild provided graphic accounts of native cultures he was able to see before their modernization. He was an accomplished photographer and illustrated the book himself.

This is his personal story of his experiences, traveling endlessly, absorbing information about plant life and sending back cuttings to experiment with, investigating plant disease, and so on. His training and experiences in European laboratories and his travels brought him into contact with most of the people in his own field, and this narrative is full of human interest material, and anecdote.

Fairchild worked for the USDA in its infancy, was one of the first to investigate microbial causes of plant disease, and traveled the world documenting agricultural practices. He was a humorous and modest man who lead a fascinating life.

David Grandison Fairchild (April 7, 1869 - August 6, 1954) was an American botanist and plant explorer. Fairchild was responsible for the introduction of more than 200,000 exotic plants and varieties of established crops into the United States, including soybeans, pistachios, mangos, nectarines, dates, bamboos, and flowering cherries. Certain varieties of wheat, cotton, and rice became especially economically important.

Table of Contents

I. Background

II. Kansas

III. I Enter Government Service

IV. I Meet Barbara Lathrop And Reach Naples

V. Breslau, Berlin, And Bonn

VI. Java Ho!

VII. The Lathrop-Fairchild Odyssey Begins

VIII. The Cannibal Isles

IX. American Interlude

X. The West Indies And South America

XI. Cotton In Egypt

XII. Across The Java Sea

XIII. From Finland To Dalmatia

XIV. Land Of The Pharaohs

XV. Malta, Tunis, Algiers, And Spain

XVI. England, America, And West To The Orient Once More

XVII. The Persian Gulf And Bagdad

XVIII. A Glimpse Of Saigon And A Long Stay In Japan

XIX. I Visit Luther Burbank And Circumnavigate Africa

XX. I Meet Alexander Graham Bell

XXI. A Grand Tour Of These United States

XXII. Mostly Personal

XXIII. Washington, Madeira, And “In The Woods”

XXIV. Baddeck, Nova Scotia

XXV. Mostly Aviation

XXVI. Lacquer And Wild Wheat

XXVII. Aaron Aaronsohn And Joseph Rock

XXVIII. More Plants, Introduction Gardens And Mr. Bell

XXIX. Florida In 1912

XXX. Monsters Of The Backyard

XXXI. The Flowering Cherry Trees Are Planted In Washington

XXXII. Quarantine Increases And War Begins

XXXIII. Seeds From Afghanistan

XXXIV. The Plains Of Canada

XXXV. The War And Dried Vegetables

XXXVI. The Allison Armour Expeditions

XXXVII. Aloha

Index

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