Fairchild was responsible for the introduction of more than 200,000 exotic plants[1] and varieties of established crops into the United States, including soybeans,[2] pistachios,[3] mangos, nectarines, dates, bamboos, and flowering cherries.

Barbour Lathrop, a wealthy world traveler, persuaded Fairchild to become a plant explorer for the US Department of Agriculture.

[10][11] Fairchild was a member of the board of trustees of the National Geographic Society,[12] and an officer in what is now called the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

They named it "The Kampong", after similar family compounds in Java, Indonesia, where Fairchild had spent so many happy days collecting plants.

He covered this property with an extraordinary collection of rare tropical trees and plants and eventually wrote a book about the place, entitled The World Grows Round my Door.

[15] His son, Alexander Graham Bell Fairchild, lived and worked as a research entomologist for 33 years at the Gorgas Memorial Laboratory in Panama.

His daughter, Nancy Bell, married another entomologist, Marston Bates, author of many books on natural history.

Egypt then led the world with a class of cotton higher quality than "upland" and more economical than "sea island".

Fairchild wrote four books that describe his extensive world travels and his work introducing new plant species to the United States.

Beside sharing his legendary tropical botanical expertise, Fairchild provided graphic accounts of native cultures he was able to see before their modernization.