William Saunders (botanist)

William Saunders (December 7, 1822 – September 11, 1900) was a horticulturist, landscape designer and nurseryman. During his long career, Saunders designed the Soldiers National Cemetery at Gettysburg, planned and developed the Washington DC park system, authored hundreds of articles on horticulture and introduced numerous plant species into the United States, significantly impacting the nation's agricultural economy. He was one of the first landscape architects to be employed by the federal government and spent thirty-eight years working for the US Department of Agriculture. He was also one of the founders of the National Grange, or Patrons of Husbandry.

Early life
William Saunders was born on December 7, 1822, in St. Andrews, Scotland. In 1834 he started at Madras College in St. Andrews where he planned to study for the ministry of the Church of Scotland but became interested in horticulture and landscape gardening. He studied horticulture at the University of Edinburgh and then undertook practical horticultural training at Kew Gardens. He also worked as an apprentice gardener on several large estates in London. Saunders married Martha Mildwaters in 1848 and emigrated to the United States. He became an American citizen in 1857.

Saunders first worked as a gardener on the estate of William Bostwick in New Haven, Connecticut. In the 1850s he moved to Baltimore, Maryland and was employed on the estate of Johns Hopkins. Hopkins' 400-acre estate was one of the largest country places in America. In addition to managing the estate farm, Saunders designed landscape features including large lakes and various flower gardens.

At this time, Saunders also began to write articles on horticultural topics which were published in the leading horticultural journals including The Horticulturalist, Hovey's Magazine of Horticulture, The Farmer and Gardener, and The Philadelphia Florist. Many of his contributions provided practical advice on the propagation of fruit trees and grape vines.

In 1854 Saunders established a partnership with the distinguished horticulturalist, Thomas Meehan, whom he had met while working together at Kew Gardens. In addition to establishing a nursery, Saunders and Meehan collaborated on several public park projects, cemeteries, and residential site plans. Saunders' cemetery designs included Rose Hill Cemetery in Chicago and Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield. He also developed plans for cemeteries in Perth Amboy and Rahway, New Jersey, and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Department of Agriculture
In 1862 Saunders was hired as the superintendent of the experimental gardens at the newly-created Department of Agriculture where he worked for the rest of his life. At the time, the organization was called the Bureau of Agriculture and did not achieve cabinet status until 1889. During his thirty-eight year career, Saunders made notable contributions in the fields of landscape design and horticulture.

Landscape design
In 1863, Saunders was selected by a committee of Union governors to design the Soldiers National Cemetery in Gettysburg. Saunders laid out the cemetery on a radial plan focused on a central monument, and grouped the Union dead by states. The graves were marked with simple, rectangular slabs of gray granite inscribed with the name, rank, and company of each soldier. He explained that this repetition of "objects in themselves simple and common place" was intended to evoke a sense of "solemnity." Around the cemetery, Saunders framed the site with extensive plantings, using uncommon varieties of trees and shrubs, many of which he had recently introduced to America himself. This combination of simplicity and extensive green landscaping was a new approach to cemetery design that had not been seen before in Europe or the United States.

Before Lincoln left for Gettysburg to deliver his famous address, he met with Saunders to review the cemetery design. Saunders later wrote that "He [Lincoln] was much pleased with the method of the graves, saying it differed from the ordinary cemetery, and after I had explained the reasons, said it was an admirable and befitting arrangement."

In 1865, after Lincoln's assassination, Saunders was asked to design the landscape for a Lincoln monument at Oakridge Cemetery, the same cemetery he had originally planned in 1861. His design featured large open areas of lawn and irregular groupings of non-native trees including magnolias, arbor vitae, and mock orange.

Saunders also designed the landscaping for the west facade of the Capitol and other important locations in the federal capital. He was president of the Washington Parking Commission, where he developed city parks and implemented an ambitious program of planting street trees. He oversaw the planting of 80,000 trees and established the city’s reputation as the “City of Trees.”

Horticulture
Saunders was appointed head of the newly-created USDA Experimental Gardens in 1862 and remained in the position until his death in 1900. He defined the mission of the organization and established its operating guidelines in his "Catalogue of the Plants, Bulbs, Tubers, Etc., for Distribution from the U.S. Propagating Garden with a Report on the Objectives and Aims of the Garden" (1862). This was the USDA's first publication.

His guidelines called for the USDA to procure new and better plants for the country and “ascertain, by experiment, the influences of varied culture” and “investigate more thoroughly the various maladies and diseases of plants and the insects that destroy them.”

As as example of their productivity, in two years from 1865 to 1867, the USDA Experimental Garden evaluated more than 120 wheats, 167 ryes, 230 melon varieties, 70 peas, 50 grass species for hay production, and more than 500 strawberries, grapes, apples, and pears. The results of all this work was published and made available to farmers.

Using this experimental approach, Saunders introduced hundreds of economically important plants, including Japanese persimmon; Eucalyptus globulus tree; Japanese cedar (Cryptomeria japonica); camphor tree; one of the first magnolia trees in Washington D.C.; and many more. About 300 varieties of winter-hardy apples from Russia were evaluated and introduced into the US, resulting in a significant improvement of the Northeast’s apple production. In 1866, Tappahannock wheat was identified in the evaluation program as a superior wheat variety, noted for its high yields, early maturity, disease resistance, and flour quality. The New York Times wrote on April 26, 1873, that for the “wheat crop in 1862. . . average yield per acre was 12.1 bushels. With Tappahannock, wheat distributed by the department showed an average yield per acre of twenty-five bushels.”

The navel orange was Saunder's most acclaimed plant introduction. In 1871 he received a dozen young orange trees from Bahia, Brazil. The fruit was described as large, sweet and seedless. Saunders presented two of the trees to an old friend, Eliza Tibbets, who left Washington, D.C., to join her husband in the new community of Riverside, California. The trees thrived in the California climate and orchards of this new citrus variety became widespread in southern California. According to the 1937 “USDA Yearbook of Agriculture,” the introduction of what became known as the Washington navel orange was considered “one of the outstanding events in the economic and social development of California.”

Grange
Saunders supported the interests and economic welfare of the American farmer. In 1867 he and six colleagues founded the National Grange, an organization meant to promote the economic and political well-being of agricultural and the rural community. Saunders authored the Grange's constitution and was elected its first Master, a position he held for the next six years. During his tenure, Saunders was a strong advocate of women's participation and representation in the organization.

Works
During his lifetime Saunders published hundreds of articles on horticulture, agriculture, and landscape design. Some of his works include:


 * Journal, 1898. United States Department of Agriculture Library, Washington, DC. This unpublished handwritten journal by Saunders is the most detailed primary source dealing with Saunders' career with the Department of Agriculture in Washington, the background of the Soldiers National cemetery, and his design ideas for Washington, D.C.
 * "Landscape Gardening." The Report of the commission of Agriculture for the Year 1869. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. An important source concerning Saunders' understanding of the history and nature of landscape gardening.
 * "Landscape Decorative and Economic Gardening." in City Homes, country Houses and Church Architecture or the American Builders' Journal, by Samuel Sloan. Philadelphia, PA: Claxton, Remsen, and Haffelfinger; 1871. In this series Saunders reaffirms many of the ideas expressed in "Landscape Gardening" and develops some of them further.
 * "Remarks on the Design for the Soldiers' National cemetery, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania." Revised Report Made to the Legislature of Pennsylvania Relative to the Soldiers National Cemetery at Gettysburg. Harrisburg, PA: Singerly and Myers, State Printers. This is the definitive statement of Saunders' design concept for his most important cemetery commission.