William Henry Brewer. 73 



edge of his character and ability left no room for the criticism 

 of those who, with more or less reason, always suspect that a 

 public commission will be made a private graft. 



He was a member of the United States Forestry Commission 

 in 1896, which visited and reported upon forest conditions in 

 the west. 



At the age of 66 he joined an exploring expedition on the 

 steamer Miranda, which went up the coast of Greenland and 

 was wrecked near the Arctic Circle. After much danger and 

 great exposure and discomfort, the party was rescued by a 

 small schooner "built to accommodate 18, that could carry 22, 

 but came back with 90 people on board, " who were forced to 

 sail the North Atlantic in her for fifteen days. 



Interested in the problems of animal breeding, he made 

 special researches in the evolution of the horse, particularly in 

 the matter of speed, gathering and discussing the very volu- 

 minous data which had never been thus treated. His predic- 

 tion from this discussion, of the time of the coming of the 

 two-minute racing horse, was verified. 



He was fond of travel, not for rest, but for the recreation 

 which he found in careful observation and record of facts in 

 all departments of human interest. To observe and gather 

 was his delight all the davs of his life. Even the signs of 

 waning strength and the coming of old age interested him as a 

 new class of facts to be studied and noted. Afraid of nothing, 

 he observed in himself these things in the detached way that a 

 physician might watch a hospital patient. It is the one regret 

 of those who knew him that to arrange, discuss and publish 

 his work was hard and almost impossible for him. 



"Educated away from the farm" in his youth, his sympathy 

 with farm interests was always active. He was a professor of 

 agriculture, not only in the Sheffield School, but throughout 

 the state. His addresses at farm meetings, through many 

 years, which were published in the reports of the State Board 

 of Agriculture, did much to make its early reports sought 

 after everywhere as an encyclopaedia of farming. All the 

 various work of the farm was familiar to him. On practical 

 matters he spoke to practical men as one having authority, 

 in homely language and with that kind of humor which is 

 indigenous to country life. 



He labored, with his associate and friend, Prof. S. W. John- 

 son, for the establishment of an agricultural experiment sta- 

 tion in Connecticut, and saw it established, the first one to be 

 organized in the United States. He was a member of its 

 Board of Control from 1877 until he died, and his last public 

 appearance was at a meeting of this Board a few days 

 before his death. 



