The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-12-21
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

]
 rest in the shadow.
 |
 l Now the state has such man, and he
 is in position of responsibility and pow i CT. and has all the machinery necessary l to be press-agented to the fullest, and
 yet he pushes his work and modestly
 stays in the background.
 Now the average newspaper man takes
 very little stock in the individual who
 pretends that he does not like to see
 his name in the paper, yet will go out of
 his way to get mentioned, and is peeved \ and is overlooked Out of large ex-
 perience I can name on one hand the
 men who prefer to go unnoticed. | Now I confess that I like it, and when 1 I take, part in any public event and ! the reporters fail to note it I am in 1 clined to attribute their neglect to a lack of appreciating good fellow when they see him in action. If 1t was left
 be in state of 'inocuous desuetude, for the personal pronoun is good enough for me.
 I suppose this is the reason why I ap- preciate real man doing a real public service without caring for notoriety, get ting his reward in the consciousness of work we'll done. Such man is John Frederick Duggar, director of the Ala tt.x and professor of agriculture in the Ala bama Polytechnic institute, Auburn. ~ I have known him for more than 15 1 years and have watched his career with sympathy and interest as man who had found his lifes work and had settled down to it's accomplishment with quiet 1 ness, but backed by determination from which nothing could swerve him. 1 Happy is the man who has found his ! work and is happy in the doing of it. l I have met him in his home, on the 1 trains, at associations, in conventions, at dinners and he is always the same
 unobtrusive but highly interesting and in- structive gentleman whose great service l to his state is beginning to be known 1 lost in academic clouds, but his feet are planted on the earth, and he knows as
 much and more about the soils of Ala bama as any man in it.
 From time to time I have read his pamphlets and watched his more modest efforts at authorship, but back in 1911 his volume Southern Field Crops l ill the rural textbook series edited by milan company, gave him national reputation as an authority in his special l area of service, and ever since has made him a conspicuous figure in any gath.
 ering of agrculturists.
 *f
 l I am book fiend. If the text is good
 I revel in it. If the paper is fine I like 1 to feel it. If the illustrations are well
 done I feast on them. If the index is l is attractive it adds a pleasure. I joy | in the improvement made in textbooks. l Now southern Field Crops" has all the virtues enumerated and is satisfying in every way. If you are tired of novels
 and want to enter Into a new world of
 interest get hold of a copy and if you
 have any farmer blood in you it will hold you with keenest interest.
 From time to time I take up a new
 line of reading. Going around with Mrs. 1 Mathis set me wild on books of agricul- ture and I bought and read with grow
 ing interest dozens of the latest works
 on every phase of agriculture. I sit here
 and write and before me are six cases
 dred subjects. If you are tired of life
 and the average literary works pail on you dive into books redolent of the soil 1 Ten years or more ago I happened to
 be in Auburn when Prof. Duggars home
 garden was at it's best, and I can re-
 member to this day the wonderful vege-
 table dinner I sat down to in his hos pitable home. I was in Auburn recently. i Der. I went home with him unannounced
 and again there was feast of fresh vegetables. He sent to the exhibit 10
 varieties of vegetables gathered out of
 his winter garden
 1 After dinner we went through the green
 houses and saw the cut flowers and the various plants for experimental pur-
 poses One room was like that of any
 up-to-date florists with blooms of all kinds ready for the market. Another sec-
 tion was where various tests were under
 way There were vases of roses fit to
 grace the table fany banquet. A large
 selection of ornamental plants were un-
 der glass or bedded for the winter. Stu dents had the specimens before their
 eyes and could also handle them in their studies
 Y I then went with him into the room where he had his maps. Everything is
 done sSstematically. He pulled out draw
 CT after drawer of maps of Alabama
 marked with different kinds of pins |, showing the various experiments being
 made throughout the state with fertilizers or field grasses or cotton or corn-al
 of these experiment. farms being noted day by day by those on the ground and
 checked up later by experts and the re-
 suits tabulated. It was heartening to see