MISCELLANEOUS. 



SKETCH OF MANLY MILES. 

 FROM POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, APRIL, 1899. 



To Dr. Manlj Miles belongs the distinction of having been the first 

 professor of practical agriculture in the United States, as he was ap- 

 pointed to that then newlv instituted position in the Michigan Agricul- 

 tural College in 1865. 



Professor Miles was born in Homer, Cortland county, New York. July 

 20, 1826, the son of Manly Miles, a soldier of the Eevolution; while his 

 mother, Mary Cushman, was a lineal descendant of Miles Standish and 

 Thomas Cushman^ whose father, Joshua Cushman, joined the Mayflower 

 colony at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1621, left him there with Gov- 

 ernor Bradford when he returned to England. 



When Manly, the son, was eleven years old, the family removed to 

 Flint, Michigan, where he employed his time in farm work and the 

 acquisition of knowledge, and later in teaching. He had a common 

 school education, and improved all the time he could spare from his reg- 

 ular occupations in reading and study. It is recorded of him in those 

 days that he was always successful in whatever he undertook. In illus- 

 tration of the skill and thoroughness with which he performed his tasks, 

 his sister relates an incident of his sowing plaster for the first time, when 

 his father expressed pleasure at his having distributed the lime so evenly 

 and so well. It appears that he did not spare himself in doing the work, 

 for so completely was he covered that he is said to have looked like a 

 plaster cast, "with only his bright eyes shining through." A threshing 

 machine was brought on to the farm, and Manly and his brother went 

 round threshing for the neighbors. Industrious in study as well as in 

 work, the boy never neglected his more prosaic duties to gratify his thirst 

 for knowledge. He studied geometry while following the plow, drawing 

 the problems on a shingle, which he tacked to the plow-beam. When- 

 ever he was missed and inquiry was made about him, the answer in- 

 variably was, '^Somewhere with a book." He was most interested in the 

 natural sciences, particularly in chemistry in its applications to agri- 

 culture, and in comparative physiology and anatomy, and was a diligent 

 student and collector of mollusks. 



Choosing the profession of medicine, Mr. Miles was graduated M. D. 

 from Eush Medical College, Chicago, in 1850, and practiced till 1859. In 

 the meantime he became greatly interested in the subject of a 

 geographical survey of the State, for which an act was passed and ap- 



