Andrew Jackson Downing

Andrew Jackson Downing (1815 to 1852) was an American horticulturist, writer and landscape designer, regarded as a founder of American landscape architecture. Born at Newburgh, New York, he worked in his father's nursery and taught himself botany and landscape gardening. His 1841 Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening was the first book of its kind published in the United States, and with his brother Charles he wrote Fruits and Fruit Trees of America (1845), long a standard work. From 1846 until his death he edited The Horticulturist, a journal that spread horticulture, pomology, botany, entomology and rural taste. He also designed Hudson Valley houses and estates, prepared a plan for the National Mall around the Smithsonian, and worked with Calvert Vaux from 1850.