150 Points of Pride

The Iowa State University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences has a proud and distinguished history. As part of Iowa State's sesquicentennial celebration, 150 points of pride related to the College - accomplishments, discoveries, contributions, highlights, famous and interesting people - will be posted here. These postings will coincide with 150 days of the 2007-2008 academic year, beginning Aug. 20, 2007 and ending May 2, 2008, with time off for the Thanksgiving, winter and spring breaks. Check back each Monday for five new items.

Suel Foster

Suel Foster was born in New Hampshire and moved to Iowa in 1836 at the age of 25. He established the 100-acre Fountain Hill Nursery near Muscatine. In 1856, as a writer for the Iowa Farmer and Horticulturist, he took up the subject of schooling for farmers. He insisted that Iowa must have a “Farmers’ College.” In January 1858 the Iowa General Assembly passed an act to establish an Iowa Agricultural College and appropriated $10,000 for support. Foster was elected the first president of the college’s Board of Trustees, a position he held until 1865. The board selected Story County as the site of the new Agricultural College on June 21, and a picnic was held July 4 on the site to commemorate the occasion. The original college farm of 648 acres was purchased from five different owners at a total cost of $5,379. Influenced by Foster, the college charter included the requirement that horticulture be taught.

Fast fact: Foster was among nurserymen who wanted to propagate hedge plants as fences for livestock operations, and he liked the Osage orange plant. But it proved less than perfect because of winterkill losses, the need for continued cultivation and the fact the plants proliferated like weeds.

George Washington Carver

George Washinton
Carver

Carver was the first African American to enroll at Iowa State College, becoming one of its most distinguished graduates. He arrived in Ames thanks to the encouragement of a faculty member at Simpson College in Indianola who noted his interest in plants. After earning his bachelor’s degree in 1894, he went on to graduate school and joined the staff of the horticulture department as manager of the experiment station greenhouse. He received his master’s degree in 1896, then left for the Tuskegee Institute where, during a lifetime career as director of agricultural research, he won world acclaim for the development of hundreds of profitable uses for products like cotton, peanuts, soybeans and sweet potatoes.

Fast fact: While at Iowa State, Carver was a student leader involved in the YMCA, the debate club and other activities. He was captain of the campus military regiment. His poetry was published in the student newspaper, and two of his paintings were exhibited at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago.

Joseph L. Budd

In 1877, Budd became the head of Iowa State’s horticulture and forestry department. He became recognized as one of the nation’s most respected horticulture teachers and developed one of the largest fruit breeding programs in the country, with major emphasis on apples. The greatest problem with fruit growing in Iowa was lack of winter hardiness. Thinking fruit varieties from severe climates would fare well in Iowa’s harsh winters, Budd imported apple shoots from Moscow in 1878. Four years later he collected several hundred varieties of hardy fruits from Europe, then propagated the plants and distributed them by the thousands across the state. As the Russian apple trees bore fruit, it quickly was discovered the apples ripened in the summer instead of the fall, as growers preferred. Plus the apples were susceptible to diseases. But all was not lost, as Budd and others were successful in using the germplasm to breed a number of new varieties that were adapted to the Midwest. For more than 25 years, Budd wrote a weekly article for the Des Moines Register. In 1884-85, Budd served as acting president of Iowa State College.

Fast fact: Budd played a role in bringing George Washington Carver to Iowa State. His daughter, Etta, was the Simpson College teacher who persuaded him to go to Ames, where he lived with Budd for a short time.

Charles Bessey

A pioneer in laboratory teaching methods in botany, Bessey was born in a log cabin in Ohio and educated at what is now Michigan State University and Harvard. When he completed undergraduate studies in 1870, he was appointed as botany instructor on Iowa State’s original faculty. He also taught zoology and entomology. He established the nation’s first teaching laboratory in botany, wrote the first research papers published at Iowa State, assembled a collection of 15,000 botanical specimens and served briefly in 1882-83 as acting president of Iowa State. He joined with Seaman Knapp in drafting a proposal later embodied in the Hatch Act, which provided support for the establishment of state agricultural experiment stations. He helped lead Iowa State’s initiation of experimental farm and extension education programs. In 1894, he accepted the appointment as dean of the newly established botany department at the University of Nebraska, where he remained for the rest of his academic career.

Fast fact: In 1966, Iowa State named its new plant sciences building in his honor. One of the more unique features of Bessey Hall is a greenhouse on top of the building that boasts Iowa's largest banana crop and seven varieties of carnivorous plants.

Griffith Buck

World-renown rose hybridizer and Iowa State alumnus Griffith Buck has been an enormous benefactor in the creation of roses known for their hardiness, attractiveness and low maintenance. Buck’s love for roses was sparked through a pen-pal relationship with Spanish rose nurseryman, Pedro Dot. Dot planted the seeds of interest in young Buck, which bloomed into a life dedicated to the study and creation of more than 90 rose varieties during his time at Iowa State. Buck graduated from high school in 1932, taught school in Appanoose County for five years and served in the U.S. Army before enrolling at Iowa State in January 1946. There he earned bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees in horticulture. In 1949 Buck joined the Iowa State horticulture extension staff and restarted the rose breeding program. Considered among the best, roses cultivated by Buck often carry very Midwestern names such as “Barn Dance” and “Prairie Sunset.” Buck’s rose “Carefree Beauty” introduced in 1977 has been designated an EarthKind™ rose by Texas A&M University. This designation is given to roses that demonstrate a high level of landscape performance with outstanding disease and insect tolerance. Varieties of Griffith Buck’s roses are on display in Reiman Gardens as well as in other gardens nationally and internationally.

Fast Fact:Ironically, Buck’s work caused him to develop an allergy to roses so he needed allergy shots for 30 years.

*Some historic photographs courtesy of the University Archives.

150 Points of Pride Archives