The New International Encyclopædia/Downing, Andrew Jackson

DOWN′ING, Andrew Jackson (1815-52). An American nurseryman, landscape gardener, and pomologist, born at Newburgh, N. Y. His influence upon American horticultural development is probably unsurpassed. To him must be accredited the introduction and development of the free or English school of landscape gardening in America. He planned the grounds about the National Capitol, the White House, and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D. C. To his foresight, and to his spirit as communicated to others, we owe our present American system of broad free municipal parks. Downing's monumental work, Fruits and Fruit Trees of America (1845), greatly extended by his brother Charles (q.v.), together with his numerous essays, form the bulk of his contribution to the literature of horticulture. Another important work is the Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening (1841). These essays were first published in the Horticulturist, of which he was editor at the time of his death, and afterwards in book form under the title of Rural Essays (1854), for which book George William Curtis wrote a memoir of Downing. He was drowned while attempting to save the lives of others on the burning Hudson River steamer Henry Clay.