426 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE 



While loved by his students, most of whom have been successful and 

 many have gained eminence as agricultural professors or workers ia 

 Experiment Stations, and while receiving sympathy and support from 

 President Abbot, Dr. Miles was not appreciated by the politicians, or by 

 all of the Board of Agriculture, or even by the public at large. Unkind 

 and captious criticisms were made of his work, and it was found fault 

 with on economical grounds, as if its prime purpose had been to make 

 money. He therefore resigned his position in 1875, and accepted the pro- 

 fessorship of agriculture in the Illinois State University. Thence he re- 

 moved to the Houghton Farm of Law^son Valentine, near Mountainville, 

 N. Y., where he occupied himself with scientific experimental investiga- 

 tion. He was afterward professor of agriculture in the Massachusetts 

 Agricultural College, at Amherst. In announcing this appointment to the 

 students^ Dr. Chadbourne, then president of the institution, and himself 

 a most successful teacher, stated that he considered Dr. Miles as the 

 ablest man in the United States for that position. In 1886, shortly after 

 Dr. Cladbourne's death, Dr. Miles returned to his old home in Lansing, 

 Michigan, where he spent the rest of his life in study, research, and the 

 writing of books and articles for scientific publications. 



During these later years of his life he took up again with what had 

 been his favorite pursuit in earlier days, but with which he had not 

 occupied himself for thirty years — the study of mollusks — with the 

 enthusiasm of a young man, Mr. Walker says, who being interested in the 

 same study, was in constant correspondence with him at this time; "and 

 as far as his strength permitted labored with all the acumen and at- 

 tention to details which were so characteristic of him. I was particularly 

 struck with his familiarity with the present drift of scientific investiga- 

 tion and thought, and his thorough appreciation of modern methods of 

 Avork. He was gteatly interested in the w^ork I was carrying on with 

 reference to the geographical distribution of the mollusca, and, as would 

 naturally be supposed from his own work in heredity in connection with 

 our domestic animals, took great pleasure in discussing the relations of 

 the species as they are now found and their possible lines of descent. He 

 was a careful and accurate observer of Nature, and if he had not drifted 

 into other lines of work would undoutedly have made his mark as a great 

 naturalist. As it is, his name will always have an honored place in the 

 scientific history of Michigan." 



When Professor Miles began to teach in the Michigan Agricultural 

 College, the ''new education" was new indeed, and the text-book method 

 still held sway. But the improved methods were gradually taking the 

 place of the old ones, and Professor Miles was one of the first to cooperate 

 in them, and he did it with effect. He used text-books, "but his living 

 word," President Clute says, "supplemented 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 

 ns 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 

 students, 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, 



