The World Was My Garden

The World Was My Garden
by David Fairchild
Adopted by
A. F. Kawasaki
in memory of Linda Hollenberg
on December 15, 2020
Cover of The World was my garden

The world was my garden travels of a plant explorer

By David Fairchild. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1939.

David Fairchild (1869-1954), was a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) botanist and plant explorer extraordinaire. He wrote this book on behalf of and with the assistance of his friends, Alfred and Elizabeth Kay. He had been ill and close to 70 years old at the time of publication. Fairchild lived an incredible life collecting food crops throughout the world. In the last five years, there has been a resurgence on the importance of his career because of biographies written by two authors, Daniel Stone and Amanda Harris. Fairchild is responsible for the introduction of a number of exotic food plants into the United States, including avocados, soybeans, pistachios, mangos, nectarines, dates, and bamboos. He also had a role in bringing the iconic Japanese flowering cherry trees to Washington D.C. in the early twentieth century.

The World Was My Garden documents his many travels for the U.S. government, with wealthy benefactor Barbour Lathrop, and his wife Marian Hubbard Bell Fairchild, daughter of Alexander Graham Bell. He also describes the early days of management and bureaucracy at USDA. The book is illustrated with many photographs Fairchild took during his lifetime. It describes and documents an incredible life of adventure and discovery of someone who greatly influenced American horticulture and how we eat today.

Discover more about this book in our Catalog.

Adoption Type: Build and Access the Collection