Ulysses Prentiss Hedrick - Biography

Biography

Hedrick was born in 1870 in Independence, Iowa. He grew up in Northern Michigan near Harbor Springs and is the brother of Wilbur Olin Hedrick. He attended Michigan State Agricultural College (now Michigan State University), receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in 1893 and a Master of Science degree in 1895. He worked as Assistant Horticulturist at MSAC from 1893 to 1895, while studying for his M.S.

From 1895 to 1905, Hedrick taught botany and horticulture at Oregon Agricultural College (1895–1897), Utah Agricultural College (1897–1899), and Michigan Agricultural College (1899–1905). He became a horticulturist at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, New York in 1905. While in Geneva, Hedrick completed a Doctor of Science degree at Hobart College in 1913. He continued to work at the Station, which he directed from 1928 onwards, until 1937, when he retired.

Hedrick was a Fellow of the New York State Historical Association and a member of the American Society for Horticultural Science and American Pomological Society.

During his lifetime, he authored or co-authored more than a dozen publications, which are "still frequently consulted", on the subjects of pomology and horticulture. His monographs on fruits, including publications such as The Pears of New York (1922), "have become classic references on the fruit cultivars of the period".

Hedrick died in 1951.