 After working for William Prince and Sons, proprietors of the famous Linnaean Nursery at Flushing, New York, in 1840 he and George Ellwanger co-founded the Mount Hope Garden and Nurseries in Rochester, New York, which introduced flower and fruit cultivation to Western New York and grew to be the largest such nursery in the country.From 1844 to 1852 Barry edited "The Genessee Farmer", which eventually merged into "The Cultivator and Country Gentleman", and after Andrew Jackson Downing's death took over "The Gardening Magazine".He also published the "Treatise on the Fruit Garden" (1851), which was revised and reiussed as "Barry's Fruit Garden" in 1872, and compiled a monumental catalog of fruits for the American Pomological Society.