82 THE PORTRAIT GALLERY 



A PROFESSOR WHO PRACTISED HIS OWN PREACHMENTS 



26. Towering head and shoulders above his colleagues in the 

 collegiate profession as a moulder of the destinies of the Ameri- 

 can livestock industry, is Charles F. Curtiss, dean and director 

 of the Division of Agriculture of the Iowa State College, Ames, 

 la. Dean Curtiss possesses the happy combination of a mind 

 and instincts firmly grounded in livestock fundamentals, and is 

 able to impress the student of agriculture, the farmer, the young 

 breeder and the most seasoned man of business with the dignity 

 and the desirability of rural callings. Dean Curtiss gained a 

 vision of the relations between agriculture and public service 

 through his years as an understudy of "Tama Jim" Wilson (15) 

 when the latter was professor of agriculture and director of the 

 experiment station at the Iowa State College. He was bom at 

 Boral, 111., December 12, 1863, the son of Franklin Curtiss, 

 a sturdy and progressive pioneer farmer. His early years were 

 spent on the farm and at twenty years of age he entered Iowa 

 State College. He received his Bachelor's Degree in 1887 and 

 seven years later was awarded his M. S. In recognition of his 

 broad services to American husbandry he was given the doctorate 

 of science in 1907 by the Michigan Agricultural College. 



It is in Dean Curtiss' public life, however, that his greatest 

 contributions to agriculture have been made. With his first sav- 

 ings he secured the tract of land south of Iowa State College 

 that is today known as Rookwood Farm, and with an eye to the 

 achievements of the constructive leaders of the preceding gen- 

 eration, selected high class Shorthorn cattle, Shropshire sheep 

 and Berkshire swine with which to stock it. Recognizing the 

 profitableness of using purebred draft animals to provide farm 

 power, a few years after establishing his farm, he purchased a 

 few Percheron mares and at present has a capital bunch of 

 breeding animals and young stock. Dean Curtiss is a con- 

 structive farmer of the broadest gauged type. He not only has 



