, 1908-03-24
MEN OF THE HOUR.
(Courtes y of

James Wilson has been secretary Of
agriculture since March, 1897, but he
mas held onto his farm and his legal
domicile in Tama county, Iowa. BY
March 4, 1909, he will have served
through the terms of two presidents
twelve years.
Thomas j. Callan, whom Gen. Custer
sent for achievements when his com
mand was entrapped on the Little Big
Horn in Montana, and who led a relief
force back to the place where Custer
and his men had been slaughtered, IS
dead at Yonkers, New York.
James Oliver, the millionaire plow
manufacturer of South Bend, Indiana,
died last week at the age of eighty
four years. He came to this country
from Scotland in 1884, a poor and
friendless lad. In 1865 he invented the
steel pillow that CAV him fame n for
tune.
Clinton D. Smith, professor of ento-
mology in the Michigan agricultural
college, has been offered the presidency
of an agricultural college in Brazil, the
offer coming through the Brazilian
Ambassador at Washington. The col.
lege is now a small affair and the Of
fer c~ontemplates its development into
a large national institution.
John P. Brown, the great catalpa ex.
pert, is now at Carney, Alabama, where
he has finished planting zoo, 900 catalpa
trees on his own plantation n 200,-
900 more of small size in nursery. Be
sides this he has set 300 900 trees for
the l.. & n. railroad. This man Brown
has himself set more trees than all the
government experts combined.
Ezra Meeker, the pioneer settler of
Washington, has returned to his home
in Seattle after two years spent in re-
tracing the old Oregon trail, and seek
ing to interest President Roosevelt
and congress in the proposition to pro-
perly mark the trail from the Missouri
country to Puget Sound. He believes
this will be done. With his OK team
he travelled 1850 miles in this laudable
purpose.
Upton Sinclair, the socialist who
wrote the jungle, is establishing a
Helicon Hall colony in Bermuda to
take the pace of the n recently de-
stroyed by fire III Engiewood, New. Jer-
sey. He can make his colony strong
by simply growing onions. Most of the
Heliconites, of course are ~highbrows
who deal in great thoughts and put
them into literature for the purpose OF
uplifting their fellowmen.
Francis Drake, a ranchman of What
com county, Washington, is sole heir
whose death occurred at Calcutta re-.
Gently. The estate is valued at $1S,-
coo, 900. Francis Drake ran away from
home when he was eleven years of age
and for thirty-seven y.urs Lord Fran
els was unable to locate him. Ten
years ago they got into communication
with the result that Lord Francis an
nounced the Whatcom rancher to be
his sole heir.
Nathan Bird, a book dealer of New.
port, r. l., made the first importation
of seed to this country. In 1868 he
imported a small quantity of onion
from London. In New York City hemp
and fax seed were advertised for sale
as early as 1865 and garden seeds IA
1776. However, Boston was the chief
seeds market of the United States dur
ing the early days and a dozen dealers
handled seeds exclusively or in cou-
junction with other comodities. Prior
to 1900 practically all the seeds sold
in the United States were imported
from London.
Colonel C. D. Perry, an extensive
farmer and stock raiser lear Engle-
wood, Kansas, has been experimenting
for three years with twelve acres OF
winter wheat. He plows the ground
early, stops up every other hole in the
drill when seeding, thus putting the
rows sixteen inches apart, and sows
one-half bushel of seed to the acre.
Then the ground is kept thoroughly
narrowed both fall and spring. In all
other respects the ground is treated
as other wheat land and NOT irrigated.