Glimpses of History
By Bill McFee and Fred Patterson
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Agronomy moved into the Life Science Building on February 11, 1955. Major renovations were made in Agronomy space on floors 2 and 4 forty years later, about 1995 to 1998. In the beginning, current room 2-458, next to the present main office, was the conference room. It was similar to the one in Botany and Plant Pathology, one floor below. There was a row of Offices along the south side of hall 4 on the second floor and a large extension workroom behind the offices. This room later became the conference room and rooms in the Plant and Soils basement became extension workrooms. The coffee room was a small room at the end of the entrance to this conference room. The rooms of our current business office and main office workroom were on and weer used for the secretary pool. In Indiana, the standard for a University one-person office is 120 square feet. Many outside wall offices were 8 ft x 16 ft. for two persons. Originally there were halls at the west end of the building. We thought up the plan to close these for offices for graduate students. We worked for 10 years or more to get permission to close these halls. The janitors argued that they needed these halls to move their large, motorized hall sweeper from hall to hall. Sometimes there have been major renovations made in individual laboratories needed for new functions. Renovations will continue in other areas of Lilly Hall, so we are not finished with renovation noise.
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Have you noticed the gutter along the outside of Greenhouse #2? When the first six greenhouses were built in the early 1950s, Greenhouse #2 was selected for cooling use in the summer. A metal pipe with spay nozzles was installed along the roof peak to spray cooling water from a Purdue well over the greenhouse roof. The roof also needed to be whitewashed to keep it cool. The reaction of rust in the water and the white was resulted in a brown cement cover for the roof. Men had to go up on the roof an hand scrape off this material. I’m sure the men thought it would have been easier to replace the glass. That ended the idea of water-spray cooling of a greenhouse.
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In 1999 Purdue University announced the “Purdue University Book of Great Teachers,” actually a large wall plaque on the first floor of the west foyer of the Memorial Union. A special committee selected 225 people to honor form the faculty from the beginning of the University. Those chosen were selected by virtue of past university wide teaching honors, distinguished professorships, and nominations by students, alumni and colleagues. Plans are to add a new group of Great Teachers every five years.
The display is considered a part of Purdue’s Academy Park dedicated in 1997. Purdue’s Academy Park was created in the spirit of “The Academy”, the famed outdoor leaning and teaching garden of ancient Greece.
Agronomy faculty listed in the “Book” and dates of appointment are: A.R. Hilst (1949), F.L. Patterson(1950), J.LL. Ahlrichs (1956), W.W. McFee (1966), J.J. Vorst (1969), G.E. Van Scoyoc (1972) and L.E. Schweitzer (1980)
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The Federal Soft Wheat Quality Laboratory (renamed the Eastern Soft Wheat Quality Laboratory) was established at the Ohio State University in Wooster, OH in 1937. Ohio State University has supplied facilities and part of the research staff. The early years were spent determining which laboratory tests were best to measure soft wheat milling and baking qualities. By about 1950 they began evaluating breeder’s samples of potential wheat cultivars. For samples of 20 pounds they determined flour yield and the baking performance of a layer cake and two sugar snap cookies.
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In the beginning of the Southwestern Indiana Wheat Improvement Association, effort was directed to a community owned seed cleaner going from farm to farm cleaning wheat for seeding. The second effort was made to reduce wild garlic in wheat with crop rotation to reduce garlic competition. The extension scope was increased to include nitrogen fertilization, 2-4D control of weeds, including garlic, test of new potential cultivars from Purdue, etc. Howard Lathrope was a showman. His annual program produced around 30 meetings attended by 2,000 people. It supported over 50 radio programs, several TV programs, and 70 to 100 news programs. About 400 farmers participated in the wheat prediction contest. The program had great success.
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Indiana is one of the leading states in the production of popcorn. Purdue has had a very productive breeding program beginning with Dr. O.E. Nelson in Botany and Plant Pathology in the mid 1940s and continued by Dr. Bruce Ashman from 1959, until his retirement in 1995. We all miss the two months of free popcorn during the popping expansion tests each fall.
An important advancement by Dr. Nelson was the discovery and inclusion of the “ga” gene in popcorn which prevented popcorn from being pollinated by stray pollen of field corn. All modern popcorn hybrids have this gene. Production and marketing of hybrid popcorn seed has been a major activity of the Agricultural Alumni Seed Improvement Association over the years. They have done the breeding of popcorn since 1995 as well.
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Orville Redenbacher’s popcorn has a Kansas State University connection. Recently, Orville Bidwell, professor emeritus of Kansas State University, prepared an article for the Department of Agronomy archives. He states, in an interview in 1981 on the history of popcorn, that Redenbacher said he got his inbreds from Dr. Brunson. Dr. Brunson was Purdue’s dent corn breeder from 1938 to about 1954. He had been the corn breeder at Kansas State for the prior 15 years. One of the popcorn inbreds was Kansas 3, or K3, that traced to Dr. Elmer Heyne’s personal efforts started as a young man on the home farm in Nebraska. Elmer was corn breeder at Kansas State following Brunson, 1943-1946. In 1946, Elmer began his 36-year career as wheat breeder there but continued popcorn breeding as a hobby. He used the original family name, O’Heyne, as the brand name. K3 was reported to contribute special flavor and tenderness. Elmer’s person car license plate read POPCORN.
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When we moved into the Life Science Building in 1955, we found that some of the office door locks were not installed properly. Those who went into the office without unlocking the door with the door edge button couldn't get out the office. They were locked in. Luckily, there was room to slide a key under the door for help to unlock the door.
Mr. Mulvey had another problem with the indoor office without a window. He was working well after 7:00 pm one evening while his wife frantically wondering what happened to him. Incoming telephone calls came to a switchboard operator not into individual offices then. Mr. Mulvey didn't realize it was after 5:00 pm until someone came to find him.
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Our Agronomist, Keller Beeson, was a leader of Indiana 's growing seed industry in the 1930's, 1940's, and 1950's. He served as Secretary and Treasurer of the Indiana Crop Improvement Association. This group was a leader in developing a hybrid corn seed industry in Indiana . This group took the original leadership to approach the State Legislature for a new building for Agronomy. President Hovde's reaction was to expand the plans to house the Life Sciences. The concept was that more interactions among disciplines would occur if the faculties of broad areas of plant, animal and soil sciences were housed together. The current departments in the Life Science Building were the original occupants, but each has grown in size.
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When I came in 1950, the long-term undergraduate student instructors in Agronomy were Fred C Robbins in Crops and Jerome Seaton in Soils. They each earned M.S. degrees while full-time staff.
Mr. Robbins started in 1914 as instructor in Field Crops and over the years also taught courses in: Grain grading and seed analysis (starting in 1920s); Grain, Hay and Seed Crops (beginning in 1930s); Identification and grading of field crops (beginning in the 1930s); and Forage and Pasture Crops (with G.O. Mott in the 1940s). Professor Robbins retired in 1954 after 41 years of service to Purdue University. He had received the rank of Associate Professor by 1940.
In 1920 Jerome Seaton began a lifetime career of teaching and counseling undergraduate students as an instructor of soils. He began as instructor in Introductory Soils. In 1926 he added a course in Soils Classification and one in Soil Survey. In the 1940s, he added two courses at the graduate level, Soil conservation, and Soil Problems. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1943. In the 1940s “Associate Professor” was considered the normal terminal rank for staff members at Purdue University. In 1950, A.R. Bertrand was hired as an instructor to assist in teaching soils.
Professor Seaton was a very effective undergraduate teacher and counselor and a highly valued instructor and advisor in the graduate program in Soils. Professor Seaton retired in 1965 after 45 years of contribution to instruction in Soils.
The enrollment of Purdue grew rapidly following the end of World War II. Soon Seaton was teaching sections of soils courses with over 100 students and Robbins was terribly overloaded with several hundred students in crops courses. Dr. Peterson asked and got permission to hire more instructors to help with undergraduate teaching. The money provided was only enough to hire instructors with M.S. degrees, but they were permitted to pursue Ph.D. degrees while working full time. A.R. (Rudy) Hilst was selected to assist Robbins in crops teaching and Anson R. Bertrand was hired to assist in soils teaching, both started in the fall semester, 1949
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In 1949 and the 1950, Dr. Peterson was able to hire additional instructors and some in the Experiment Station at the M.S. level with the opportunity to pursue the Ph.D. degree. They included, with appointment date and responsibility:
Year Area
A.R. Bertand 1949 Soils, teaching
A.R. Hilst 1949 Crops, teaching
J.E. Newman 1949 Small grains, testing
M.R. Teel 1951 Forage crops, teaching
P.L. Crane 1951 Corn testing
D.A. Sander 1952 Grain crop, teaching
A.L. Zachary 1954 Soil judging
J.L. Ahlrichs 1955 Administration assistant
C.L. Rhykerd 1956 Forage crops, teaching
The opportunity to work as full time instructors and pursue the Ph.D. degree was given in later years to a few others in teaching, research or extension. These included; Eldon Hood, Don Holt, Hal Wheaton, Harold Reetz, B.J. Hankins, Roy Bronson, George Van Scoyoc, Marion Baumgardner and others.
Arvin R. Hilst, better known as “Rudy” was a member of the Agronomy Faculty from 1949 to 1989. He was our Dean of Resident Instruction for 15 years and assistant department head and outstanding crops teacher for many years prior. He received the ASA Agronomic Education Award in 1961 and was made a Fellow in the Society in 1964. Before coming to Purdue, he completed an MS at the University of Illinois. In the midst of WWII, Rudy was commissioned a 2nd Lt. in the US Army Air Corps on his 18th birthday. He was the youngest man in the Western Training Command to earn his wings and went on to be a B29 Bomber Pilot and flight leader in the Pacific Theater. A good pilot and a baseball player, Rudy was invited to join the New York Yankees farm system while still in high school. Rudy was one of the all-time favorite teachers in Agronomy, he was widely known for his excellence in teaching and re-search, but equally well known for his easy going ability to converse with colleagues and students and make them feel at ease. Both as a Professor and Dean, he had an open-door policy for students and preferred that they address him as “Rudy”. He was one of the first persons that the new Head of Agronomy, J. B. Peterson, hired in 1949. Pete selected a man of many talents. WWM
1986: Marv Phillips was Head of Agronomy, Karl Brandt was acting Dean after Bernie Liska stepped down and we awaited Bob Thompson’s start. The tri-societies met in New Orleans in 1986, 21 years and several hurricanes later we are returning in 2007. The Soil Science Society of America was celebrating its 50th anniversary. Bob Barnes (formerly at Purdue) was the new Executive VP of ASA, Richard Barnhisel (BS 1960) and Bill McFee were on the SSSA Board. President Reagan sent a congratulatory message to SSSA stating “We recognize soil as one of our most important natural resources. We understand that it must be protected from erosion, contamination and other kinds of degradation.” The Agronomy Department had 43 faculty, 37 on state funds plus 6 USDA adjunct faculty. Research in Agronomy was varied, as it is today, but funded at lower levels. Most grants were in the tens of thousands with a few higher such as Jerry Cherney’s $311,000 to study herbaceous biomass crops for marginal lands. Chris Johannsen received a small grant to run the Ag Data Network. Others I noted included Craig Daughtry’s grant to study microwave backscattering by vegetation, Phil Low’s on effects of iron oxidation state on clay swelling, Mengel’s for farm test-demonstrations, and sorghum improvement funds to Axtell and Ejeta. The Experiment Station Report showed more than a 100 manuscript submissions from the department. A few representative topics follow: Eileen Kladivko, Alec Mackay and Joe Bradford were publishing on earthworms, Darrell Norton on erosion, Schulze and Van Scoyoc on soil color, Franzmeier on oxygen and soil color, Newman and Zheng on climate for wheat production in China, White, Feldcamp, and Hem on vaccine formulations, Nelson, Sommers, and Beyrouty on hydrolysis of urea, Mackay, Kladivko, Barber, and Griffith on P an K uptake, Wilcox and Cavins on linolenic acid mutant in soybeans, Andersen and Dale on climatic data bases, Davis and N. Nielsen on genetic removal of lipoxygenase, Kirleis et al. on digestibility of sorghum, Housley on fructans, Knapp, Harms, and Volenec on growth regulators, Bullock and R. Nielsen on corn spacing, Mannering, Griffith, and Parsons on the future of conservation tillage, and Patterson and Ohm on resistance to Hessian fly. It is fun to look at the old reports and remember the writers and subjects of the 80’s. -WWM
Dr. A.A. Potter, long-time dean of Engineering at Purdue in the 1930s to 1950s, was a frequent visitor to Washington , D.C. on various boards and committees. On one visit in the 1930s President Roosevelt asked him, “How is the world's greatest engineer?” Dean Potter's answer, “I don't know, I haven't seen Mr. Hoover lately.” Governor Roosevelt and sitting president Hoover were opposing candidates in the 1932 presidential election.
Another story about Dean Potter. In about 1957 he walked through a glass wall panel they had just installed near the west entrance of the new library in Stewart Center . Most of the broken glass fell behind him and he was unhurt.
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