Over David Fairchild’s 22 years leading the Forest Service’s foreign seed department in the early 20th century, he introduced 111,857 varieties of plants and seeds to the United States, producing an estimated $110 million in economic activity across the agricultural sector.
But Fairchild’s greatest public service might be something more ornamental than functional: He was the driving force behind the introduction of thousands of iconic cherry trees around the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C.David Fairchild traveled the world over on the quest for seeds that he could bring back and introduce in the United States. A Miami Herald history of Fairchild credits him with “such success stories as the Meyer lemon, soybeans, Calimyrna figs, date palms, durum wheat, navel oranges, and many varieties of mangos and avocados to American farmers.” Though the paper also notes that the plant explorer may have rankled some of his colleagues with his penchant for “frequently setting off on long plant-hunting trips and delegating his administrative duties to someone else.“
When he wasn’t traveling,…
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