American Agriculturist* July 21,1023 
35 
like them. He took us up to the mountain top 
and 'caused us to see the glories of the world 
of agriculture and the wonders of it. I con¬ 
fess that to some extent the vision has faded, 
that I have accomplished very few of the 
things to which I went forth with high re¬ 
solves thirty-two years ago, but till I pass 
• I shall hold dear the 
name and memory of 
•thatkindly friend and 
wise farmer and rich 
philosopher. 
I yield to no one in 
my love and admira¬ 
tion for our wonder¬ 
ful College of Agri¬ 
culture, seated 
proudly on her Hill 
by the noble Lake. 
She has a great 
Faculty of high 
minded, ' intensely 
trained teachers, but 
I am sure that not 
one of them will take 
it amiss when I say 
that- on no man has 
..Roberts’ mantle fal¬ 
len and that he left 
no successor. He 
was unique—a man 
called of God for his 
time. 
He was in no sense 
a learned man 
judged purely by the 
standards of lifeless 
books. Ind v eed he 
never came to handle 
easily and accurately 
the severe technical 
vocabulary of sci¬ 
ence. But to have been one of the little group 
of boys who followed him over the farms and 
through the woods and fields was a wonder¬ 
ful privilege, for his laboratory was under 
bending skies and not within brick walls. 
Many men have lovingly sought for a 
phrase which should set down and embody 
the spirit or the genius of this great Teacher 
of Boys. I, too, have thought upon it and 
I crave leave to borrow a phrase that came 
from the pen of another Disciple—Dean 
Bailey when he wrote “He was the wisest 
farmer I ever knew.” 
Let His Own Works Praise Him 
By A. It. Mann 
Dean of the New York State College of Agriculture, 
Cornell University 
I T may be commonplace to remark that the 
present generation is the heir of all the 
generations which have gone before. The 
present achievements of men rest on the 
foundations laid in the past. The sounder 
and the more enduring the foundations, the 
more substantial and permanent the super¬ 
structure is likely to be. 
The College of Agriculture in New York 
State has a very rich inheritance from 
Roberts, Bailey, and others, and its present 
character and ideals have their roots deep 
in the past. 
Isaac Phillips Roberts was a practical 
idealist of the best sort. His ideals were 
clear and tangible and composed of solid 
•stuff, free from vagaries and fancies.. His 
sturdy, practical sense controlled his ideals 
and kept them within the area of accomplish¬ 
ment. He believed that the activities of the 
farm and the problems of agriculture had 
an educational content worthy of a place in 
the highest institutions of learning. Be¬ 
fore the sciences had been greatly employed 
in interpreting the operations of Nature or 
in re easing her secrets, he undertook to or- 
gani; ? ap institution whose primary pur¬ 
pose should be the application of scientific 
im fb >ds and knowledge to the problems of 
fag*'vulture, confident that in such applica¬ 
tion lay the way to a fuller mastery of the 
land and the crops and the animals, and to an 
Professor Roberts in his eighty-seventh year 
advancing country life. He recogrfized more 
clearly than was the custom of teachers of ‘ 
his .time the educational values to be found 
in a careful study of the common, workaday 
things of the. farm.. He accepted no’sub¬ 
stitute -for agriculture. He kept always be¬ 
fore his students the necessity for actual, 
farm experience as a 
highly essential part 
of an agricultural 
education. “The way 
to learn one part of 
agriculture, and a 
most important part, 
is to do agriculture,” 
he declared. “If 
students object to 
the toil of learning 
the fundamentals— 
without remunera¬ 
tion—then turn them 
out to grass and let 
them graze within 
the pasture of any 
other college which 
will adopt a mav¬ 
erick.” He would 
bind together, in a 
working team, sci¬ 
ence and practice. 
It was a sound basis 
for the institution he 
would build and the 
service he would 
render. 
By his clear vision 
of an educational 
program arising out 
of, yet saturated 
with, practical ex¬ 
perience ; his recog¬ 
nition of the neces¬ 
sity for scientific experiment and investi¬ 
gation; his ability to choose and inspire 
teachers; his unwavering courage in the 
face of all the difficulties and oppositions 
which could confront a new educational ven¬ 
ture in a field too generally regarded as a 
mere manual occupation not requiring nor 
to be greatly aided by much learning; his 
insistence on the job, whatever it was, be¬ 
ing well done; his forceful character; his 
realization of the human factor in agri¬ 
culture, and the importance of a good farm 
home; and his 
sturdy morality 
and sensible phi¬ 
losophy, which 
pervaded and en¬ 
riched everything 
he did—Roberts 
gave to the State 
and to the Nation 
a service and a 
program of guid¬ 
ance which have 
been far-reaching 
in their effects. 
He blazed trails 
and opened high¬ 
ways for agricul¬ 
tural progress. 
The present 
staff and student 
body at the Col¬ 
lege do not forget 
Director Roberts. 
His life, work, 
and example pro¬ 
vide the text for 
many a 1 e s s o n. 
His part in the development, not only of our 
own College, but also of agricultural educa¬ 
tion in America, was too important to be 
•overlooked by those who have entered into 
his labors. Not only the people at the Col¬ 
lege, but also the farmers of the State and 
the Nation, are his permanent debtors. 
When Director Roberts retired from the 
headship of the College of Agriculture, in 
1903,. after thirty years of devoted service, 
he went ta join his three children in Cali¬ 
fornia. He settled first in Palo Alto, 
where he built a home. He has since occa¬ 
sionally lectured at the farm school at Davis 
and at the school at San Luis Obispo, and 
has frequently been a guest of honor at 
• farmers- meetings throughout the State. In 
his ninetieth year he is still able-bodied. 
While failing sight has made it necessary 
for him to give up reading and writing, he 
still retains his interest in the large national 
problems of agriculture and in the daily ex¬ 
periences of the farmer. He may now be ad¬ 
dressed by his many old friends who may 
desire to gladden his ninetieth birthday an¬ 
niversary, at Dwight Way End, Berkeley, 
California. * * * . * 
The Art of Tickling the Soil 
By H. H. Wing' ' " ; 
Head of the Department of Animal Husbandry, New York 
State College of Agriculture 
I T was my privilege to know and to be in¬ 
timately associated with Professor Roberts 
for more than fifteen years, and it is with 
pleasure that I accept your invitation to con¬ 
tribute to your celebration of his ninetieth 
birthday, and if what I have to say should 
be too reminiscent and intimately personal, 
I trust I may be pardoned, for others will 
pay tribute to his more distinguished public 
services. 
My intimate acquaintance with Professor 
Roberts began in the fall of 1880 when the 
eight of us seniors assembled in the little 
lecture room in Morrill Hall to begin the 
course in “Practical Agriculture,” five lec¬ 
tures a week and two afternoon practices. 
In these days of classes running into the 
hundreds with large lecture halls and elabo¬ 
rate equipment, when the students appear 
only as the lecture hour approaches and go 
out with a rush at the first stroke of the bell, 
it seems strange to speak of any intimate 
relation between professor and student h and 
as a matter of fact such intimacy is largely 
impossible much as it may be desired by 
both parties. We who are old-fashioned, and 
perhaps too ; prone to look back upon the good 
old ‘ days, believe that this intimate ac¬ 
quaintance went far to make up for the lack 
of modern equipment and conveniences. 
The little group of eight students and the 
professor was much like a family. The 
students knew one another and were not 
slow to rub up against each other’s individual 
no 
The ‘‘Old South Barn,” 
College, 
longer standing, the first barn owned by the 
designed by Professor Roberts 
eccentricities and opinions. They knew the 
professor and what would be required of 
them and best of all the professor knew the 
students and how to encourage the diffident 
and repress the too exuberant as when on 
one of the afternoon farm walks the “leg 
puller” of the class approaching the profes¬ 
sor inquired solicitously as to the prospects 
of fruit in the college orchards. With the 
quizzical twinkle all will remember the re¬ 
ply came quickly. “Mr. Blank, is it possible 
(Continued on page 38) 
