Connecting With Nature

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Conference Focus
Despite the fact that Liberty Hyde Bailey wrote, edited, and co-authored over 1,300 articles and journals, 65 books, a collection of poetry, and 24 albums of plant photography, he is not well known in Michigan today. His legacy is waiting to be rediscovered. He is particularly relevant to the present-day crisis of agricultural sustainability.

Liberty Hyde Bailey was a monumental figure in the development of modern horticulture, agricultural education, nature study, and rural life in America. He defined the intellectual and spiritual foundations of what would become the environmental movement and an ethical relationship with the natural world. He worked to improve the lives of rural farmers and to preserve the land, popularized nature study in U.S. classrooms, lobbied successfully for women’s rights on and off the farm, and spear headed Teddy Roosevelt’s pioneering conservationism. Bailey’s revolutionary thinking would go on to influence a generation of conservationists and the development of the University-based Cooperative Extension System and the 4-H programs.

Liberty Hyde Bailey developed the foundation of modern horticulture, nature study and ecology. He spent his life actively achieving his visions—to develop a scientific nomenclature of cultivated plants, bring agriculture as a recognized field of study, attract children into the world of nature, and for all of us to respect the planet. Born in 1858 and living for nine decades, he bore witness to his achievements and received public acclaim for them. His works are still lauded in the scientific community and are very relevant to today’s general population. He was a humble and honest man, cared little about himself, but more about what he could do to improve the world. He lived his long life to procure the betterment of mankind, and in particular, those who spent their lives in contact with the earth.