THREE FRIEl^DS OF HOiiTIOULTURE. 



EDWIN WILLITS, M. A. 



That Michigan should furnish the first Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, 

 under the new status of the national department of agriculture, "was gratify- 

 ing in great degree ; but that Edwin Willits should be chosen and our Agricul- 

 tural College deprived of his valued services detracted not a little from the 

 satisfaction engendered by state pride and knowledge that a deserving man 

 had received his deserts. What concerned horticulturists still further was the 

 loss from the college of an official who had been their friend and recognized 

 their interests more fully than his predecessors. 



If Michigan horticulture owes much to the Agricultural College, and there 

 can be no doubt that it does, it owes much also to Mr. Willits, for he was its 

 friend when friends were few. From 1860 to 1873 he was a member of the 

 state board of education, and during his first year succeeded in changing the 

 policy that body pursued toward the college, and submitted the plan adoption 

 of which caused the formation of the state board of agriculture and the re- 

 organization of the Agricultural College upon a basis of independent existence. 

 Says one of his biographers, upon this point, "He foresaw and was among 

 the first to advocate the necessity of the change, and it seems like a curious 

 instance of that compensation whicli time sometimes brings about, that, after 

 the lapse of more than a quarter of a century, he should be placed at the 

 head of the institution whose true policy he did so much to shape in its early 

 days." It was largely by the aid of President Willits that the depariment of 

 horticulture was advanced to its due relative position at the college, and 

 furnished with needed accessories and encouragement. It was consideration 

 of these things, as well as the marked wisdom and success of his adminstration 

 of college affairs in other respects, that led the Michigan State Horticultural 

 Society, at its meeting in March, 1889, to pass resolutions warmly eulogistic 

 of Mr. Willits and his work and congratulatory to President Harrison upon 

 his selection for assistant secretary of agriculture. 



Born at Otto, Cattaraugus county. New York, April 24, 1830, Mr. Willits 

 has had a varied career, one embracing several different occupations, but 

 nearly all in the line (»f educational work. His early life was spent in the 

 county of Washtenaw, where ho prepared himself in the public schools and by 

 private study for entrance to Michigan University, whence he graduated from 

 the literary department in 1855, subsequently receiving from the University 

 the degree of M. A. Study of the law with Isaac P. Christiancy, at Monroe, 

 provided for Mr. Willit's admission to the bar in 1857, and he followed the 

 practice of law for several years, but ere long followed the bent of his genius 

 and won high repute both as a teacher and a superintendent in the schools of 



