This cache will take you to Liberty Hyde Bailey's experimental
garden where he tried out new plant species and variants of
agricultural plants and ornamentals, rumored to also have included
marijuana.
***Do not disturb plants - cache should be reached by staying
on the brick path.***
The garden is open to the public, is owned by Cornell, and is
cared for by volunteers; his red brick house with its adjoining
carriage house (downslope to the right of the garden) is also owned
by Cornell but is leased out. Feel free to spend some time in the
garden with its small brick path - the best access is from the
driveway branching east off of Sage Place which is itself off of
Seneca Street. There is street parking on Seneca.
The cache has a log, mechanical pencil, and a resident
Cachepillar Geocoin to discover.
Liberty Hyde Bailey (1858-1954) was a horticulturalist,
botanist, and educator who deserves to be more famous than he is.
His study of cultivated plants significantly influenced the
development of genetics, plant pathology, and modern agriculture.
He is one of those individuals who seems to have accomplished so
much that it is hard to believe he had only 24 hours a day like the
rest of us. For decades he dominated the American study of matters
agricultural and environmental.
Bailey was a professor of botany and horticulture at Cornell
University and was instrumental in the establishment of Cornell's
New York State College of Agriculture. Bailey made botanical
science the foundation of horticultural research, which changed
horticulture from a craft into an applied science.
At the request of President Theodore Roosevelt, Bailey served as
chairman of the Commission on Country Life in America. The
commission’s recommendations led to the establishment of the
U.S. agricultural extension service, parcel-post service, and other
programs to meet the unique needs of rural America. Bailey is also
credited with being instrumental in starting the 4-H movement, the
nature study movement, and the American Society for Horticultural
Science. He is considered the father of rural sociology and rural
journalism, coined the word "cultivar," established the journal
Gentes Herbarum (1920-1984), appointed Cornell's first
female professor, and founded the Bailey Hortorium, based on a gift
of his herbarium and library to Cornell.
The author of 65 books, he wrote botanical publications and
taxonomic studies of palms and other plant families, works directed
toward explaining botany to lay people, as well as poetry and
philosophy.