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 CHartes F. Curtiss, dean and director 
of the Division of Agriculture of the Iowa State College, Ames, 
Ta. DEaNn 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. DrEsn Curtiss gained a 
vision of the relations between agriculture and public service 
through his years as an understudy of “Tama Jim” Witson (15) 
when the latter was professor of agriculture and director of the 
experiment station at the Iowa State College. He was born at 
Boral, Ill., 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 
