Saturday, September 27, 2014

Me and Liberty Hyde Bailey

About thirty-five years ago, pre-internet, I got  the three volume set of Liberty Hyde Bailey's The Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture.  It never let me down when I needed it.  




That set, along with Wyman's Garden Encyclopedia, covered 99%
 of what I needed to know.  (Wyman's is Massachusetts based which worked for me when it came to recommended varieties.) LH Bailey was a writing machine...and what he wrote was good.  Google him and 6 pages of returns are his works...and then you start getting the returns where he was writing in a journal or magazine or with someone else. 

I have been spoiled by the internet.  I don't get up and go to my own library!  If I had I would have posted this already :-)  Once I remembered my old friend (the book, not Bailey) I looked it up online and here is the entry for china asters.  The link is below to the whole volume if you like. He includes such great information - history, opinion and fact.  Here is part of the preface to Volume I.  You can start to read Volume I and find yourself sucked into a fantastic world of people who really know their plants.  Specialists contribute to entries in the Cyclopedia.

LINKS: Aster (not China type) in LHB  
              Aster, China  in LHB ... same as below      





 






Cyclopedia of American Horticulture, Comprising Suggestions for Cultivation of Horticultural Plants, Descriptions of the Species of Fruits, Vegetables, Flowers and Ornamental Plants Sold in the United States and Canada, Together with Geographical and Biographical Sketches



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