Edward J. Wickson
| Edward J. Wickson | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | August 3, 1848 Rochester, New York |
| Died |
July 17, 1923 (aged 74) Berkeley, California |
| Residence | United States |
| Fields | agronomy, horticulture, agricultural journalism |
| Institutions | University of California, Berkeley |
Edward J. Wickson (August 3, 1848 – July 17, 1923) was an American agronomist and journalist who was a leader in agricultural education in California in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Edward James Wickson was born on August 3, 1848, in Rochester, New York. He graduated from Hamilton College, New York, in 1868 or 1869 with distinction in classics and chemistry. After graduation, he joined his father's agricultural tools factory, but it was destroyed by fire in 1870, ruining the family's finances. In 1871, he joined the staff of the Utica Morning Herald, a champion of the state's cheese industry. This position led to his election as the secretary of the New York Dairymen's Association (1871) and as president of the Utica Dairymen's Board of Trade (1873). His expertise in matters pertaining to the dairy industry was such that in 1874 and 1875 he was chosen to speak to state dairymen's conventions from New England to the Midwest.
In 1875, Wickson moved to California to join the Pacific Rural Press (which later merged with California Farmer magazine). He became a special contributor in 1894 and was promoted to editor in 1899, a position he held until 1923. During his tenure at Pacific Rural Press, he wrote widely on the agricultural topics of the day and published several encyclopedic books on growing fruit and vegetable crops that remain useful resources for farmers. He also wrote on historical topics, such as the roots of the state's agriculture in the Spanish mission system, and he wrote various bulletins for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Wickson was an advocate for the experimental horticulturist Luther Burbank and wrote about him in Luther Burbank; Man, Methods and Achievements, published in book form in 1902. They had both come to California in 1875, and they knew of each other very soon thereafter. By the 1880s, Wickson was praising Burbank's hybrids in the pages of Pacific Rural Press, so much so that Burbank renamed his green Perfection plum to the Wickson plum in 1894. Wickson is credited with being one of the two men (the other being former Stanford University president David Starr Jordan) who helped created the legend of Burbank as one of the great self-taught leaders of modern agricultural science. Wickson is also said to be one of the half dozen authors who anonymously wrote the text for the 12-volume set Luther Burbank: His Methods and Discoveries, published by the Luther Burbank Press in 1914–15.
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