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By Donita Brannon
The vast majority of plants, fruits and vegetables that are grown and
consumed by Americans today are not native to the United States.
Adventurous explorers from centuries past trekked around the globe
to discover these plants, determine their value as food, textiles, etc.,
ship them back to the U.S., and then bring them into cultivation.
One of the greatest plant explorers of all time was David Fairchild.
Born in Lansing, Michigan in 1869, and raised in Manhattan, Kansas,
he studied agriculture at Kansas State College of Agriculture. He
graduated with a Masters Degree in Agriculture in 1889. At the tender
age of 22, David Fairchild managed the Section of Foreign Seed and
Plant Introduction program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture,
a department he created. In 1905 Dr. Fairchild married Marian Bell,
daughter of Alexander Graham Bell. For the next 37 years he traveled
the world in search of plants of potential use to the American people.
Akin to “Indiana Jones,” he conducted field trips to Asia, the South
Pacific, Dutch East and West Indies, South America, Egypt, Ceylon,
China, Japan, the Persian Gulf, and East and South Africa. Often called
the “Columbus of American Horticulture,” he is credited with bringing over
20,000 plants into cultivation in the U.S., important crops such
as avocados, mangoes, dates, nectarines, bamboos and horseradish, to
name a few.
We have David Fairchild to thank for the flowering cherry trees that
grace the streets of Washington, D.C. In the early 1900s, city planners were
urged to line the streets and avenues with trees. Dr. Fairchild suggested
flowering cherry trees. He and his wife Marian had been successfully
growing cherry trees on their property in the woods on the outskirts of D.C.
and believed they would adapt well to local conditions. However, there
were no funds available to purchase trees. Dr. Fairchild drew upon the
good relationships he had forged with Japanese officials and botanists during
his expeditions. In 1910 the mayor of Tokyo sent, as a gift to our country,
2,000 flowering cherry trees, from the people of Japan. Unfortunately,
the trees were suspected of harboring insects and were quarantined and burned!
In 1912 the mayor again generously supplied another shipment of 2,000 trees. Happily, these trees
passed through quarantine and grace the streets of Washington, D.C.
with their beauty and fragrance to this day.
Although the Fairchilds lived primarily in Washington, D.C., in 1916 they purchased an eightacre
parcel of land on Biscayne Bay in Florida and named it The Kampong, a Malaysian word for a
village or cluster of dwellings for an extended family. This became an “introduction garden” where
he experimented with many of the plants he collected on his expeditions. He and Marian
built a home there in 1928 where they hosted many famous guests including Marian’s father,
Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford, and Harvey Firestone. I was honored to have visited this
fabulous garden and have had lunch in this very home with the former director of the garden,
Larry Shockman.
In 1938, David Fairchild’s dear friend, Col. Robert Montgomery, named the Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden in his honor.
This 83-acre tropical paradise in Miami, Florida contains over 200,000 plants collected by David Fairchild. Fairchild himself
planted a huge Baobab tree that still stands near the entrance to the garden.
David Fairchild wrote several books about his world travels, his plant collections, and native cultures
he encountered on his journeys. In 1938 he wrote The World Was My Garden: Travels of a Plant Explorer and
in 1947 he wrote a book about his life at The Kampong entitled, The World Grows ’Round My Door: The Story of
the Kampong, a Home on the Edge of The Tropics. Dr. Fairchild lived at The Kampong until his death in 1954. After
Marian’s death in 1963 the property was purchased by Dr. Catherine Sweeney, a world traveler, botanist, philanthropist,
and preservationist. Referred to as “The Savior of the Kampong,” she is responsible for preserving the site and
transforming it into a botanical garden. Many of the plants that Dr. Fairchild planted still exist today and are part of
the heritage collection of The Kampong. In 1984 it was entered into the National Register of Historic Places,
an irreplaceable botanical treasure that is now part of the National Tropical Botanical Garden, a gift from Dr. Sweeney.
So, next time you are enjoying a juicy mango or bowl of guacamole salad remember to give a mental “thank you” to Dr. David Fairchild.
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