PREFACE 



It is now five years since this series of annual volumes was 

 undertaken. Its motive has been to preserve the salient move- 

 ments and events touching horticulture in North America, for, 

 otherwise, there has been no consecutive attempt to make a 

 history of the subject. The rural arts and sciences have failed 

 to place themselves with equal rank alongside other fields of 

 human progress, very largely because they lack permanent and 

 attractive literature. The present volumes cannot expect to 

 supply this want, but it is hoped that they may, in some meas- 

 ure, contribute to it by affording a repository of facts to those 

 who have the skill to make a graceful and useful literature. 



The plan of these volumes has been somewhat modified in 

 the present instance because of the great length of the Colum- 

 bian Exposition history. It has been necessary to greatly 

 reduce Part II, omitting some directories, indexes to current 

 literature, accounts of tools and inventions, obituaries, and 

 the like ; but it is expected that these features will be restored 

 in succeeding volumes. It is probable that no other unofficial 

 history of horticulture at the World's Fair will appear, and the 

 importance of this subject to the horticultural development of 

 America, is sufficient excuse for the temporary omission of the 

 customary features of the volumes. 



This history of the Exposition has been made with the 

 cooperation, directly or indirectly, of most of those persons who 

 were concerned in the development or maintenance of that great 

 enterprise. The author spent nearly four months at the Expo- 

 sition for the express purpose of compiling this account. A 

 continued correspondence to Garden and Forest has been freely 

 used, by permission, in the final preparation of this history. 

 Mr. Warren H. Manning, connected with Olmsted, Olmsted 

 and Eliot, and one of the judges of ornamental plants at the 

 Exposition, has given me much assistance. The complete list 

 of the hardy plants on exhibition in the grounds of the Fair, 

 was prepared almost wholly by Mr. Manning. I desire here to 

 express my warmest appreciation of the readiness and freedom 

 with which the affairs of the Department of Horticulture were 

 placed at my disposal by its chief, Mr. J. M. Samuels. 



L. H. BAILEY. 



Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. 



