Jane Lloyd is a volunteer in the LuEsther T. Mertz Library of The New York Botanical Garden.
Dr. James Craik (1730–1814)
William Craik (1703–1798), a former owner of a book in the Rare Book Room of the LuEsther T. Mertz Library, was not a famous person, but he had an important influence on the founding of the United States. Craik signed his name and the year “1764” on the fly leaf of Statical Essays; Containing Vegetable Staticks; or an Account of some Statical Experiments on the Sap in Vegetables…, the third edition of which was published in 1738 by Stephen Hales (1677–1761).
Craik was the eldest son of a landowner in Arbigland, Scotland. When he inherited his father’s run-down estate in 1736, he set out to improve it by using new agricultural techniques and machinery, and Hales’s book would have been essential reading for him.
Craik had at least one illegitimate child—a son—before he married. That boy, James Craik (1730–1814), studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, then joined the British Army and served in the West Indies. In 1754 he joined the Virginia Provincial Regiment as a surgeon and saw action in the French and Indian War, serving with and becoming a close friend of George Washington, who eventually commanded the regiment.
Esther Jackson is the Public Services Librarian at NYBG’s LuEsther T. Mertz Library where she manages Reference and Circulation services and oversees the Plant Information Office. She spends much of her time assisting researchers, providing instruction related to library resources, and collaborating with NYBG staff on various projects related to Garden initiatives and events.
Chance’s booktreats gardens and landscapes as designed artifacts and explores the ideologies and values that shaped their design. Chance also assesses the depiction and mediation of these spaces in photographs, illustrations, film, and text.
The Factory in a Garden is a theory-heavy book that includes information about labor history, industrialization, and, of course, garden design in Great Britain and the United States. Chapter one addresses the origin of the factory garden movement, from the early Industrial Revolution to the period between WWI and WWII. Chapter two details links between corporate landscapes and social and health reform, including urban planning and public greenspaces during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
On September 1, 1854 in Cattaraugua County, New York, a girl by the name of Anna Botsford was born. It wouldn’t be until many years later that her name would be recognized and respected. Anna was fascinated with nature ever since she was a child, and her interest in the subject followed her as she entered the newly established Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
As she studied and attended lectures, Anna found herself particularly enthralled with a young entomology professor named John Henry Comstock. Encouraging Anna to cultivate her already strong understanding and interest in nature, John recruited her to assist him with his research. Anna was a skilled illustrator. Her ink and pen illustrations of insects were detailed and accurate, making them some of the most authoritative images for insect identification at the time. As the two worked closely and intimately on various projects, a spark of romance developed; by 1878 the two were married. Anna continued her studies at Cornell University and by 1885 she graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree.
Chelsea’s powerhouse Gagosian Gallery is not the most likely place you’d find pressed herbarium specimens.
But that’s exactly what you’ll see there as part of the gallery’s current show by multidisciplinary artist Taryn Simon.
In “Paperwork and the Will of Capital,” Simon recreates and photographs the elaborate centerpieces that sat between powerful men as they signed agreements designed to change the world. Preparing the exhibition, Simon worked with Daniel Atha, NYBG botanist and Conservation Program Manager, and Sheranza Alli, NYBG Senior Museum Preparator and Herbarium Aid, who teach a Plant Collection and Preservation Workshop at the Garden.
Rusby, his health still failing, is calm and collected when confronted by bandits. But efforts to get to a lower, warmer altitude are proving difficult. Additionally, the expedition supplies arrive but with a heavy price tag.
In between the struggles of securing mules for the trip out of the mountains, paying for a botched shipping job, and battling the effects of dysentery, Rusby manages a few moments to sample the local flora, hopeful of the arrival of proper drying equipment.
OFFICIAL DIARY of the MULFORD BIOLOGICAL EXPLORATION OF THE AMAZON BASIN
H. H. RUSBY, DIRECTOR
WEDNESDAY, JULY 6, 1921
Last night was not only most uncomfortable, owing to the cold, but I became anxious about my poor lung condition. It was a great relief when morning and sunshine appeared, yet I felt very bad and a little discouraged as to my future. After breakfast, with strong coffee and a little strychnine, I felt somewhat better, but the slightest physical effort caused me to gasp severely for breath.
Altitude and cold weather continue to plague Rusby, who decides to travel ahead to warmer climes, but must pass through even higher and colder mountains to do so. He is helped along the way by the Guggenheim mining company, providing him with many comforts in the inhospitable mountains. But the survival of the expedition is in jeopardy, as the supplies have not yet arrived.
OFFICIAL DIARY of the MULFORD BIOLOGICAL EXPLORATION OF THE AMAZON BASIN
H. H. RUSBY, DIRECTOR
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 1921
This has been a very important day for us. I rose after a night of much discomfort from my cold and remained in the house all day. I wrote a long letter home and partially straightened out my accounts and brought my journal up to date. We have today made our final arrangements about our journey from here to the Boopi, and it appears that there are some unpleasant complications which will render this transaction less favorable than we had anticipated. Mr. MacCreagh had virtually committed himself to send our cargo by a contractor over a different route than the favorable one provided by the Guggenheim Company. It now transpires that we must carry out this arrangement, sending most of our freight directly by mule to Canamina, at a cost of about $3.50 American money per hundred pounds, and going ourselves with a small outfit by way of Eucalyptus and Pongo.
The freight did not arrive in time for any work at repacking today.
As Rusby and his expedition move deeper into Peru and Bolivia, the daily trials of traveling abroad mingle with fleeting moments for discovery along the way. Rusby’s fascination for all things scientific leads him to the Arequipa Hospital, where he examines ulcer patients, before taking the railroad into the mountains toward Juliaca. In between snatching up passing flowers from a train railing, struggling with altitude sickness, and sleeping through a near-death experience on the steamship, he finds time to identify the local flora, along with fruits and vegetables in city markets.
OFFICIAL DIARY of the MULFORD BIOLOGICAL EXPLORATION OF THE AMAZON BASIN
H. H. RUSBY, DIRECTOR
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 1921
I made a number of purchases of things which will be needed on our expedition. I went to the market and purchased a number of samples of vegetable products and also three pairs of fully dressed figures of Quichua indians, each accompanied, the age of the later varying from infancy to eight or nine years. In the afternoon I secured an automobile and went down to Tiavaya, where the market gardens were located, charging this expense to the Botanical Garden. Here I found growing the fruiting plants of a pepino, having oblong fruits, wholly of a deep purple color like the eggplant. I also found and obtained specimens of a species of Tasconia, which yields an edible fruit sold in the market under the name of “Tumbo“; of a plant yielding another edible fruit, sold in the market under the name of “Acchocta”; of the rhacache, a delicious turnip-shaped root belonging to the parsley family, a species of Arracacia, and some unripe fruits of the Lucuma. In the evening I attended the motion picture exhibit, which was so silly that I left before it was over.
Back in January, I began posting photos in a new series tentatively titled “Past in Focus.” I had an aim of seeking out archived Garden images and recreating those scenes as they exist now–to see in today’s landscape hints of the last century. The photographers and I made the decision to wait until the NYBG was in its full spring growth to set out, though; we figured the pictures would carry more drama and gravity if the contrasts ran high, and now that everything is lush and lively, we come to find out that our well-meaning plan wasn’t quite feasible the way we envisioned it.
Last week, Ivo, Mark and I set out with tripods, cameras, a stack of lenses and a crumpled sheaf of old photo copies in hand. I’m not exactly Man Ray, so the other two did the hard work while I tagged along as a notebook-wielding nuisance; certainly they knew the ins and outs of the Garden’s layout better than I did at this point. After only 10 or 20 minutes and a few head-scratching shuffles around the front of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, we were already stymied. Not only were the spring trees too leafy in places for us to tie in many of the landmarks seen in the original photographs, but the actual landscape of the Garden had changed. Hills had been raised, pathways rerouted, new collections added.
Why is The New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx? When the city and state of New York agreed to allow a group of scientists, civic leaders, and financiers to create “a public botanic garden of the highest class” the group was given the choice of a few different parcels of land. The plot in the Bronx–part of which belonged to the vast Lorillard estate–was chosen for both its abundant natural beauty, and for its dramatic geology. It’s easy to overlook these magnificent rocks, which provide the “bones” to the Garden’s historic landscape, when you’re surrounded by so much verdant beauty; but you shouldn’t.
The story of José and Justin Beaver is a tale of two tails.
In case you’re unfamiliar with the furry duo, perhaps we should offer an introduction. You see, José Beaver is no ordinary beaver. José is, in fact, the first confirmed beaver living within New York City limits in the more than 200 years since his furry forebears were hunted and trapped into local extinction for their luxurious pelts. Beavers were once so important to New York City they are featured on the city’s seal, and frequently act as adornment on buildings around town (and in place names, too).
So, you can see why such a fuss was made when José’s very existence in New York City was confirmed. José is a living link to history. And it only got better when, in October, the existence of José’s pal was confirmed. In a nod to popular culture, he was dubbed Justin Beaver (though, it remains possible that Justin may one day be deemed a Justine–beavers are notoriously hard to sex).
