840 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



When Professor Miles began to teach in the Michigan Agricul- 

 tural College, the " new education " was new indeed, and the text- 

 book method still held swaj. But the improved methods were gradu- 

 ally taking the place of the old ones, and Professor Miles was one of 

 the first to co-operate in them, and he did it with effect. He used 

 text-books, " but his living word," President Clute says, " supple- 

 mented the book ; and the animal from the farm under his knife and 

 ours, the shells which he led us to find under the rotten logs and 

 along the rivers and lakes, the insects he taught us to collect and 

 classify, the minerals and fossils he had collected on the geological 

 survey of Michigan, all were used to instruct and inspire his stu- 

 dents, to cultivate in them the scientific spirit and method." 



Among the more important books by Professor Miles are Stock- 

 Breeding, which had a wide circulation and has been much used as 

 a class-book; Experiments with Indian Corn, giving the results of 

 some important work which he did at Houghton Farm; Silos and 

 Ensilage, which helped much in diffusing knowledge of the silo in 

 the times when it had to fight for recognition; and Land Drainage. 

 Of his papers, he published in the Popular Science Monthly articles 

 on Scientific Farming at Rothamstead; Ensilage and Fermentation; 

 Lines of Progress in Agriculture; Progress in Agricultural Science; 

 and How Plants and Animals Grow. To the American Association 

 for the Advancement of Science he contributed papers on Energy 

 as a Factor in Rural Economy; Heredity of Acquired Characters 

 (also to the American Naturalist); Surface Tension of Water and 

 Evaporation; Energy as a Factor in Nutrition; and Limits of Bio- 

 logical Experiments (also to the American Naturalist). Other arti- 

 cles in the American Naturalist were on Animal Mechanics and the 

 Relative Efficiency of Animals as Machines. In the Proceedings of 

 the American Educational Association is an address by him on In- 

 struction in Manual Arts in Connection with Scientific Studies. The 

 records of the U and I Club, of Lansing, of which he was a valued 

 member for ten years, contain papers on a variety of scientific sub- 

 jects which were read before it, and were highly appreciated. This 

 list does not contain all of Professor Miles's contributions to the litera- 

 ture of science, for throughout his life he was a frequent contributor 

 to the agricultural and scientific press, and a frequent speaker before 

 associations and institutes, " where his lectures were able and prac- 

 tical." 



No special record is made of the work of Professor Miles in the 

 American Agriculturist, but the correspondence of Professor Thur- 

 ber with him furnishes ample proof that he was one of the most 

 trusted advisers in the editorial conduct of that journal. The fa- 

 miliar tone of Professor Thurber's letters, and the undoubting assur- 



