838 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and this inclination was encouraged by President Abbott and some of 

 the members of the Board of Agriculture. He had filled the profes- 

 sorship of zoology and animal physiology with complete success, and 

 had he consulted his most cherished tastes alone he would have 

 remained there, but he gradually suffered himself to be called to 

 another field. The duties of " acting superintendent of the farm " 

 were attached to his chair in 1864. In 1865 he became professor 

 of animal physiology and practical agriculture and superintendent 

 of the farm; in 1869 he ceased to teach physiology, and gave his 

 whole time to the agricultural branch of his work; and in 1875 the 

 work of the superintendent of the farm was consigned to other hands, 

 and he confined himself to the professorship proper of practical agri- 

 culture. 



The farm and its appurtenances, with fields cumbered with 

 stumps and undrained, with inadequate and poorly constructed build- 

 ings, with inferior live stock, and everything primitive, were in poor 

 condition for the teaching or the successful practice of agriculture. 

 Professor Miles's first business was to set these things in order. Year 

 by year something was done to remove evils or improve existing fea- 

 tures in some of the departments of the life and management of the 

 premises, till the concern in a certain measure approached the super- 

 intendent's ideal — as being a laboratory for teaching agriculture, con- 

 ducting experiments, and training men, rather than a money-making 

 establishment. 



In this new field, Professor Kedzie says, Professor Miles was even 

 more popular than before with students, and created an enthusiasm 

 for operations and labors of the farm which had been regarded 

 before as a disagreeable drudgery. The students " were never hap- 

 pier than when detailed for a day's work with Dr. Miles in laying 

 out some difficult ditch or surveying some field. One reason why he 

 was so popular was that he was not afraid of soiling his hands. His 

 favorite uniform for field work was a pair of brown overalls. The 

 late Judge Tenney came to a gang of students at work on a trouble- 

 some ditch and inquired where he could find Dr. Miles. ' That man 

 in overalls down in the quicksands of the ditch is Dr. Miles ' ; the 

 professor of practical agriculture was in touch with the soil." 



Prof. Byron D. Halsted, of the New Jersey Agricultural College 

 Experiment Station, who was an agricultural pupil of Dr. Miles in 

 Lansing, characterizes him as having been a full man who knew his 

 subjects deeply and fondly. " In those days I am safe in writing 

 that he represented the forefront of advanced agriculture in America. 

 He was in close touch with such men as Lawes and Gilbert, Rotham- 

 stead, England, the famous field-crop experimenters of the world, and 

 as for his knowledge of breeds of live stock and their origin, Miles's 



