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 
Witiiam Arnon Henry of the University of Wisconsin. 
Dean Henry was born 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 office 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 Joun Goutp 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- 
