Barry was born on 24 May 1816, near
Belfast, and came to America in 1836. 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 Genesee Farmer, which eventually merged into
The Cultivator and Country Gentleman, and after
Andrew Jackson Downing's death took over
The Horticulturist. He also published the
Treatise on the Fruit Garden (1851), which was revised and reissued as ''Barry's Fruit Garden'' in 1872, and compiled a monumental catalog of fruits for the American Pomological Society. Ellwanger and Barry entered the real estate business in 1856. Between 1872 and 1913, the firm developed the area now known as
Linden-South Historic District on the oldest part of the nursery. The district was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places in 2009. == Selected works ==