Abstract
By the death on August 23 of Sir Frederick Moore, Ireland has lost her premier horticulturist and Britain a very eminent student and grower of plants. He was born ninety two years ago in the house in the Botanic Garden at Glasnevin. He studied in Dublin and Leyden, was engaged in practical gardening in Begium ; and succeeded to the keepership at Glasnewin on the death of his father, Dr. David Moore, also a noteworthy horticulturist and an energetic field botanist as well. At Glasnevin Sir Frederick lived and worked until his retirement after forty three years service. The collections at Glasnevin, already notable, were added to greatly during his long term of office, and a higl standard of culture was attained. Handicapped neither by the smoke of London nor the cold winds of Edinburgh, Glasnevin became an important centre of horticulture. Not that conditions were ideal there—"a droughty, draughty gravel-ridge"was the way Sir Frederick described the place to me more than fifty years ago ; but his skill and knowledge succeeded in minimizing these disadvantages, and he showed a wise generosity in distributing difficult or half-hardy plants among the many Irish gardens more favourably situated, which rival in climate and soil those of Devon or Cornwall. He neither travelled much nor wrote much, and did no collecting in foreign lands, but devoted himself to the cultivation of the plants which he acquired from every part of the world. He was a horticulturist essentially, with an honoured name wherever rare or interesting plants are grown, and was ever ready to help with practical advice. Endowed with great physical and mental vigour almost to the end, he was a tower of strength in all matters relating to gardening and horticulture.
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PRAEGER, R. Sir Frederick W. Moore. Nature 164, 559 (1949). https://doi.org/10.1038/164559a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/164559a0