March 15, 1858

Liberty Hyde Bailey, Jr. born to Liberty Hyde Bailey, Sr. and Sarah Harrison Bailey in South Haven, Michigan.Two brothers: Dana, age 12, and Marcus, age 10.

1861

Dana, Marcus, and Liberty, Jr. contract scarlet fever.

Dana dies.

1862

Sarah Harrison Bailey dies.

1863

Liberty Hyde Bailey, Sr. marries Maria Bridges.

1873

Liberty Hyde Bailey, Jr. delivers his first public speech, "Birds", to the South Haven Pomological Society and later to the State Pomological Society.Elected Ornithologist of the South Haven Pomological Society.

1877-1882

Attends Michigan Agricultural College in Lansing, Michigan.Studies Botany under the instruction of Dr. William Beal.Meets Annette Smith.Graduates from Michigan Agricultural College with a Bachelor of Science degree on August 15, 1882.

1882-1883

Moves to Springfield, Illinois.Works as a reporter for the Morning Monitor. Recommended to Harvard botanist Asa Gray by Dr. Beal, and moves to Cambridge, Massachusetts to work as Gray's assistant in February, 1883.

June 6, 1883

Marries Annette Smith in Michigan.

1885

Accepts position as Professor of Horticulture and Landscape Gardening at Michigan Agricultural College.

Publishes his first book, Talks Afield: About Plants and the Science of Plants, put out by Houghton Mifflin, written to help people identify common plants.

1886

Receives Master of Science degree from Michigan Agricultural College.

Works on a geological survey of Minnesota.

June 29, 1887

First daughter Sara May Bailey born.

Winter, 1887

Bailey invited to give a series of lectures at Cornell University.

August 1888 - early 1889

Cornell sends Bailey and family to Europe on a horticulture research trip.

1889

Bailey begins work as a Professor of Practical and Experimental Horticulture at Cornell University. Second daughter Ethel Zoe Bailey born on November 17, 1889.

1893

Delivers "Agricultural Education and Its Place in the University Curriculum" address. Declares "The State must foster it."

New York State Legislature appropriates $50,000 for the construction of a Dairy Husbandry building at Cornell.

1890-1900

Bailey begins Extension work. New York State gives Cornell University Experiment Station money for research.

1895

New edition of Asa Gray's Field, Forest, and Garden Botany published, revised by Bailey.

Late 1890s/Early 1900s

Begins Nature Study/Rural School courses with John Spencer and Anna Botsford Comstock.

Summer 1899

Appoints Anna Botsford Comstock as Cornell's first female professor.

1900-1902

Bailey is editor and main contributor to the Cyclopedia of American Horticulture.

1903

Publishes The Nature-Study Idea, a collection of essays on education.

1904

Lobbys for and succeeds in getting a bill for the establishment of a State College of Agriculture at Cornell University passed in the New York State Legislature, and becomes Dean.

1904-1913

Establishes a variety of departments in the College of Agriculture, including plant pathology, agronomy, poultry husbandry, agricultural economics, farm management, experimental plant biology (plant breeding), agricultural engineering, and home economics.

May 1, 1905

Groundbreaking for Roberts Hall, the building for the New York State College of Agriculture.

1908

President Theodore Roosevelt asks Bailey to lead The Country Life Commission to investigate the status of rural life in the United States.Bailey initially refuses but eventually accepts the position.

1909

Completes work as editor and contributor to the Cyclopedia of American Agriculture.

1909-1910

Travels to Europe during a sabbatical year.

1911

Appoints Martha Van Rensselaer and Flora Rose as Professors in Home Economics in the College of Agriculture.

1913

Bailey retires as Dean of the New York State College of Agriculture.

Begins a herbarium at his home on Sage Place.

1914

Elected president of the New York State Agricultural Society.

Invited by the government of New Zealand to deliver a series of lectures.

1914-1917

Makes several plant collecting trips to South America. Revises Cyclopedia of American Horticulture, and the work is republished as Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture.

1915

The Holy Earth, a book of his philosophies on life, agriculture, and the world, is published.

1916

Publishes a collection of poetry entitled Wind and Weather.

1917

Travels to China, Japan, and Korea.

1919

Travels to Europe.

1920-1921

Travels to Trinidad and Venezuela on a palm collecting trip.

1921

Serves as president of the American Pomological Society. Writes The Apple Tree.

1922

Collects palms in Barbados.

1926

Succeeds Michael Pupin as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Elected president of the Botanical Society of America.

1930

Publishes Hortus, a guide to cultivated plants in North America.

1931

Presides over first National Conference on Rural Government.

Travels to Jamaica and Panama Canal zone on a palm collecting trip.

1934

Travels to Mexico on a palm collecting trip.

1935

Bailey gives his herbarium and its library to Cornell University: "Call it an Hortorium... A repository for things of the garden — a place for the scientific study of garden plants, their documentation, their classification, and their naming."

Daughter Sara dies.

1937

Travels to Haiti and Santo Domingo on a plant collecting trip.

March, 1938

Wife Annette dies.

1938

Travels to French West Indies, Guadeloupe, and Martinique.

1940

Travels to Oaxaca, Mexico to find Sabal mexicana palm.

1944

Bailey's idea for a campus arboretum, botanical garden, and research field is realized with the opening of the Cornell Plantations.

1946-1947

Collects plants in the Carribean and South America.

March 15, 1948

Bailey misses his 90th birthday party in Ithaca because he is on a plant collecting trip in West Indies. The celebration rescheduled for April 29.

1953-present

Baileya, "A Quarterly Journal of Horticultural Taxonomy" is published by the Liberty Hyde Bailey Hortorium.

December 25, 1954

Bailey dies at his home in Ithaca.

1956

Liberty Hyde Bailey Memorial Fund established.

1957

Ethel retires from position as curator of the hortorium.

1958

Liberty Hyde Bailey Centennial Celebration. The United States post office issues a comemorative stamp honoring horiculture and gardening in America.

1983

Bailey birthsite given to city of South Haven, Michigan, to be used as the Liberty Hyde Bailey Museum.

Daughter Ethel dies.

1990

Liberty Hyde Bailey inducted into the American Society for Horticultural Science Hall of Fame.