TRAVEL

When Bailey agreed to come to Cornell, he was also granted a trip to Europe to study various departments of horticulture and the important European herbaria. In Germany he discovered that the camera could be used to make accurate records of plant specimens. Although he did some traveling during his years at Cornell, after his retirement he devoted himself to extensive and frequently arduous travel for scientific purposes, for observation and for collecting plants. Among other trips, in 1917 he went on an expedition to China; in 1921 to Trinidad and Venezuela; in 1929 to Cuba; in 1931 to Hispaniola; in 1938 to Guadeloupe and Martinique; in 1940 to Mexico; in 1947 to Brazil.

He collected Brassica material along the coasts of Great Britain and western Europe, from eastern and central China, and from the marketplaces of four continents. Similarly, he collected Cucurbita materials from the backlands of Mexico, from isolated tribal plots of the Seminole Indians in Florida, and from Panama and northern South America. He collected palms in Mexico, Panama, Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, and many islands in the West Indies. In fact, he spent his 90th birthday in the West Indies on a palm collecting expedition.

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