Andrew Jackson Downing  Andrew Jackson Downing (October 31, 1815 – July 28, 1852) was an American landscape designer, horticulturist, and writer, a prominent advocate of the Gothic Revival in the United States, and editor of "The Horticulturist" magazine (1846–52). Downing is considered to be a founder of American landscape architecture. Downing was born in Newburgh, New York, United States, to Samuel Downing (a nurseryman and wheelwright) and Eunice Bridge. After finishing his schooling at sixteen, he worked in his father's nursery in the Town of Newburgh, and gradually became interested in landscape gardening and architecture. He began writing on botany and landscape gardening and then undertook to educate himself thoroughly in these subjects. He married Caroline DeWint in 1838. His official writing career started when he began writing articles for various newspapers and horticultural journals in the 1830s. In 1841 his first book, "A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, Adapted to North America", was published to a great success; it was the first book of its kind published in the United States. In 1842 Downing collaborated with Alexander Jackson Davis on the book "Cottage Residences", a highly influential pattern book of houses that mixed romantic architecture with the English countryside's pastoral picturesque, derived in large part from the writings of John Claudius Loudon. The book was widely read and consulted, doing much to spread the so-called "Carpenter Gothic" and Hudson River Bracketed architectural styles among Victorian builders, both commercial and private. With his brother Charles, he wrote "Fruits and Fruit Trees of America" (1845), long a standard work. In the early 1850s, Downing called the "Jonathan's Fine Winter" apple the "Imperial of Keepers", which led to it being renamed the York Imperial apple. This was followed by "The Architecture of Country Houses" (1850), another influential pattern book. By the mid-1840s Downing's reputation was impeccable and he was, in a way, a celebrity of his day. This afforded him a friendship with Luther Tucker— publisher and printer of Albany, New York – who hired Downing to edit a new journal. ""The Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste"" was first published under Downing's editorship in the summer of 1846; he remained editor of this journal until his death in 1852. The journal was his most frequent influence on society and operated under the premises of horticulture, pomology, botany, entomology, rural architecture, landscape gardening, and, unofficially, premises dedicated public welfare in various forms.