The Southern Gardener, or Short and Simple Directions for the Culture of Vegetables and Fruits at the South (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from The Southern Gardener, or Short and Simple D...)
Excerpt from The Southern Gardener, or Short and Simple Directions for the Culture of Vegetables and Fruits at the South
The want of simple and easy directions for planting a garden is often felt by persons who are inexperienced, and do not know what, when and how to plant.
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Henry William Ravenel was an American planter and botanist.
Background
Henry William Ravenel, the son of Henry and Catherine (Stevens) Ravenel, was of a distinguished Huguenot family long prominent in St. Johns, Berkeley. He was born on May 19, 1814 on his father's plantation, "Pooshee. " His mother died in his early childhood. He lived with his grandmother until his father's third marriage, when he returned to "Pooshee. "
Education
At the age of fifteen he was sent to a private school in Columbia, from which he entered the South Carolina College in 1829, graduating in 1832. In college he was especially interested in chemistry and natural philosophy. He wished to study medicine but was dissuaded by his father, himself a retired physician, who felt that his son's constitution was too frail to endure an arduous profession.
Career
The elder Ravenel gave his son a plantation, and slaves, thus starting him on his career as a planter which he continued until after the war. Ravenel thus describes his turn to botany as an avocation: "I lived in the country and took up a fondness for plants and fossils. I had a visit from a travelling naturalist, a Mr. Olmstead who was collecting plants. He initiated me fairly into the mode of making collections, and so interested me in the subject that I commenced then to collect and study and with the aid of Dr. Bachman at first, and then afterwards of Dr. Curtis, Prof. Grey and others continued the recreation. About 1846 I commenced the investigation of Cryptogamia botany".
Between 1853 and 1860 he published the best known of his botanical works, The Fungi Caroliniani Exsiccati, in five volumes. This was the first published series of named specimens of American fungi. The original edition of thirty copies was purchased by scientists and for museums in Europe and America. Further demand for the work led to the issue of additional volumes after the war. In collaboration with the English botanist, Prof. M. C. Cooke, Ravenel later published a second series, Fungi Americani Exsiccati. These publications established Ravenel as the leading authority in this country on American fungus and led to extensive scientific correspondence.
From 1861 to 1865, although prevented by physical disability from active participation in the Civil War, Ravenel was so engrossed in its progress as to set aside his scientific pursuits entirely. The close of the war found his previously comfortable fortune swept away. He made various attempts to earn a living for a large family by a nursery and seed business, by publication of a newspaper, and by writing for agricultural journals.
In 1869 he was sent by the United States government to Texas to aid in the investigation of a cattle disease then prevalent. This investigation disproved the theory that the disease was due to the eating of a poisonous fungus. He received the offer of professorships of botany from the University of California and from Washington College at Lexington, Virginia, in 1869, but he was obliged to decline because of deafness. For a number of years he derived a variable income by collecting and classifying botanical specimens for various scientists and societies.
In 1882 he became the agricultural editor of the Weekly News and Courier, continuing this work until his death.
In 1853 he moved to Aiken, South Carolina, where he died.
(Excerpt from The Southern Gardener, or Short and Simple D...)
Membership
He was elected to membership in a number of learned societies, including the Royal Zoological and Botanical Society of Vienna.
Connections
Ravenel was twice married: his first wife, whom he married in 1835, was Elizabeth Gilliard Snowden, who died in 1855; his second wife was Mary Huger Dawson, whom he married in 1858. He had four children of the first marriage and five children of the second marriage.