For a Change- 1 Remember 



By JARED G. SMITH 



Having served 14 years in the U. S. Department of Agricul- 

 e, 12 of these under Secretary James Wilson, the past and 

 ure of this branch of government has been an interesting 

 dy, since resigning in 1908. My term in the 

 deral service began as a surprise in 1894, the 

 ircumstance being that instead of seeking a 

 osition in Washington the job sought me. 

 In 1888 at the mature age of 22 I acquired 

 the B.Sc. degree at the University of Nebras- 

 ka, specializing in the botany of grasses, a 

 group of plants which most students passed up 

 as too difficult and uninteresting. 



The day after commencement I was ap- 

 pointed assistant to an imaginary agriculturist , 

 at the Nebraska experiment station, charged 

 with testing grass economics while continuing 

 botanical studies. Left to my own devices, I 

 planted every species of grass of which seed SMITH 

 was obtainable for a tryout, noting how each kind grew, how it 

 withstood summer heat and dryness and winter cold, and final- 

 ly, whether our cows and horses picked it out of manger ra- 

 tions or nosed it aside. 



* * * * 



My bulletin portraying results was reprinted in Farm Jour- 

 nals, Coast to Coast and translated into foreign languages. I 

 was a "Grass Man," one of a rare breed,, at that time only 

 half a dozen in the whole United States, and the only one say- 

 ing much about grass as feed. 



My college professor who had steered me grassward thought 

 a Ph.D. would look well.* He linagled an M.A. for me on the 

 basis of the original experiment station work, then sent me to 

 the University of Berlin. Well, I didn't like Prof. Schwendener 

 at Berlin. * 



On my own I tried to enroll at the University of Zurich under 

 Dr. Stebler, a genuine grass man. In my ignorance, I arrived 

 at Zurich in mid-semester. Stebler wouldn't register me until 

 the autumn but I could sit in. 



Student boarding houses grew tiresome when the session end- 

 ed. Came that old debbil, the * 'curse of the wandering foot." 

 So one fine day I packed my books and other ukana, shipped 

 them home to Lincoln, did homage to the "Lion of Lucerne," 

 and took ship at Genoa, Italy, for Australia — the most fortunate 

 move I ever made. 



Fate had decreed that after visiting Australian botanical gar- 

 dens and universities and the very new Mildura irrigation proj- 

 ect, an invitational kangaroo-shoot was to change my way of 

 life. Three years later, being an assistant botanist at the Mis- 

 souri Botanical Gardens, St. Louis, Fate pulled me back to Aus- 

 tralia to acquire The^Wi f e . 



5|<! 5$C 'Jf- >£. 



Craving forgiveness for this bit of autobiography, Congress 

 then intervened by setting up a grass division in the Department 

 of agriculture. Its director wrote that if I would take a civil 

 service test a $1,400 job awaited in the new Division of Agros- 

 tology. 



I flunked on translating scientific French and missed the 

 $1,400 job. Half a year later the mail brought a commission ap- 

 pointing me "assistant agrostologist" at $1,600. Needless to say, 

 the Smiths lit out for Washington pronto. 



Promotion to assistant chief at $1,800 followed, the chief 

 gradually unloading his executive duties on my shoulders. You 

 see, in the Nebraska experiment station job I had been respon- 

 sible for operating the 320-acre farm. In St. Louis, the director 

 had left me in charge of Shaw's Gardens while he explored the 

 botany of the Azores for six months. 



In Washington, although administrative duties tangled with 

 science, somehow I authored 40 bulletins about forage plants and 

 grasses — one, on Alfalfa, more than a million copies distributed 

 — and found time to monograph difficult genera including Bou- 

 teloua, Elymus and Sitanion. 



* * * * ✓* 



Administration gradually crowded science to the wall. Sec- 

 retary Wilson took me out of "grass" to be chief of "seeds and 

 plants" at $2,000, to boss Swingle, Carleton, David Fairchild 

 and other great Plant Explorers, all always in financial or dip- 

 lomatic trouble in the foreign countries where they were sent 

 to snitch such rarities as date palms, macaroni wheat, seedless 

 and wine grapes and other crops for American farms. I was of- 

 fice manager for as crazy a scientific venture as there was in 

 the whole U.S. service. \ 



So, when Congress set up the Hawaii agricultural experiment 

 station, Secretary Wilson ordered me to Honolulu as special 

 agent in charge, at $2,500, fifty one years ago. In the Civil Serv- 

 ice you go and do as ordered. Although assured that there would 

 always be a place for me in Washington if I didn't like Hawaii, 

 I am still here. 



