OF THE SADDLE AND SIRLOIN CLUB 65 



DEAN OF THE DEANS 



20. The Nineteenth Century developed a new type of service in 

 agriculture. Hitherto the steps in progress could be catalogued 

 as a breeder presented to a voracious world his triumphs of arti- 

 sanship, or as a horticulturist or crop grower put forth the pro- 

 ducts of his soil. The latter half of the century just closed made 

 the need for organization and dissemination of agricultural infor- 

 mation more and more apparent, and the arrival of agricultural 

 colleges almost simultaneously with the financial independence of 

 the American farmer, raised up the profession of agricultural 

 evangel in the land. Dean of the patriarchs of rural progress is 

 William Arnon Henry of the University of Wisconsin. 



Dean Henry was bom at Norwalk, Huron Co., Ohio, June 16, 

 1850. His early life was spent in the country and he received 

 his first collegiate training in the Ohio Wesleyan University. The 

 next five years he acted as principal of the high schools of New 

 Haven, Indiana, and Boulder, Colorado. At twenty-six years of 

 age he entered Cornell University, graduating in 1880 with the 

 degree of Bachelor of Agriculture. During his last two years in 

 college he became particularly interested in botany, and held a 

 slightly compensative position as student instructor in that de- 

 partment. Upon graduation he was elected professor of Botany 

 and Agriculture at the University of Wisconsin. His first class- 

 room and o£Bce consisted of one room in a dwelling house on 

 University Farm. For the next few years he conducted extensive 

 research on the ensiling of corn and amber cane. In 1883-85 he 

 secured the services of John Gould of Ohio to do institute work 

 on silage, and to this one influence can be traced Wisconsin's 

 leadership in the use of ensilage today. So pertinent was his 

 work that in 1883 Governor Rusk recommended that an Agri- 

 cultural Experiment Station be created under W. A. Henry's 

 direction. With the adoption of this plan Dean Henry became 

 professor of Agriculture, and in 1885 at the suggestion of Sena- 



