Month: September 2014

A recent gift from Dr. H. William Gabriel (class of 1956) lets us step back into time to the life of a V.P.I. (Virginia Tech was then called Virginia Polytechnic Institute or V.P.I) cadet and student in the Forestry and Wildlife Conservation (FWC) Curriculum in the 1950s. One of the unique items in the Gabriel collection is a watch chain worn as a Senior Class and Junior Class privilege. According to the Student Life Policies, 1955-56, the watch chain may be suspended from the watch pocket to the right hip pocket of the trousers. … The chain worn to the hip pocket may have no more than five devices suspended therefrom. Gabriels chain has four keys indicating membership in four honor societies: Pershing Rifles (military), Phi Sigma Xi (forestry), Alpha Phi Omega (Boy Scouts service fraternityhe had been an Eagle Scout), and Phi Sigma (biology).

The Phi Sigma Xi key is unique. The forestry program then was tinyonly about 100 studentsand it lacked the recognition afforded students in other curricula. In 1955 Gabriel organized an honorary fraternity for forestry students called Phi Sigma Xi. It was intended to last only a few years until the V.P.I. forestry program could qualify for membership in the established national honorary known as Xi Sigma Pi.

The fifth key on his watch chain was lost. It was a small replica of a double-bit axe representing the Forestry Club. The little pen knife at the end bears the crest of Thomas Jefferson High School Corps of Cadets and was a favor received from his date at a formal military ball there in 1951.

Because Dr. Gabriels own Forestry Club patch was very worn, George K. Jim Frischkorn (FWC 59) donated his patch.

All freshman Cadets (“rats”) were required to wear the belt buckle of brass on white web belt in place of the black leather belt. By tradition, on the last day of “rat” status, at the end of the freshman year, classmates signed each other’s belts. He defaced the buckle with a 56 and added a very faded blue and white Pershing Rifles ribbon (usually worn on the uniform shirt) and an Alpha Phi Omega pin, two organizations he joined as a freshman.

Dr. Gabriel’s collection also includes Student Budget: A Daily Record of the Cost of an Education in which he recorded the income and expense of his sophomore year. The booklets were sold in the college bookstore, and he used it to estimate if the War Savings Bonds bought $0.10 and $0.25 at a time would get him through college. His income for the 1953-54 academic year was $956.23, and his expenses were $807.72.

Room in the college dorm and board in the college dining hall cost $95.80 the first quarter, $110.80 second quarter, and $110.80 the third quarter. No expense was recorded for tuition because he had a $300 scholarship that covered those costs. Clothing expenses were virtually nil because he has purchased all necessary uniforms as a freshman.

His job in the dining hall paid $30 to $42 per month. In December he received $11.50 for work on a forest fire, and in May $25 as an ROTC uniform allowance. Other income came from selling his used books, selling photos he took of other students, a Christmas Saving Club account, and cashing in mature U.S. War Savings Bonds that his frugal mother, a single parent, taught him and his brother to buy and save for a rainy day.

Dr. Gabriel wrote:

The week I turned 12 years of age I got a work permit, a Social Security card, and a job that paid more than minimum wage. I had worked ever since. The summers of 53, 54, 55 I hitchhiked out West to work for the U.S. Forest Service on national forests in California and Idaho. Each Christmas vacation I delivered mail from the Westhampton P.O. substation in Richmond. And so I managed to pay for my education.

This week Virginia Tech marked the 100th anniversary of Virginia’s Cooperative Extension program. In addition to events on campus and in the library, special collections created an exhibit of original materials related to Virginia Tech’s role in Cooperative Extension. But the story of state outreach to Virginia’s farmers goes back even further.

At the end of the nineteenth century, the General Education Board (sponsored by John D. Rockefeller) led a nationwide agricultural extension and demonstration movement. In Virginia, the board designated Hollis B. Frissell, head of the Hampton Institute, to organize demonstration work for African American farmers, and Joseph D. Eggleston Jr., the state superintendent of public instruction, to bring the demonstration program to white farmers. The genesis of this statewide effort came at a Richmond meeting in 1906, with a number of influential politicians, university presidents, businessmen, and agricultural experts in attendance. At this meeting T.O. Sandy accepted the offer to be the state’s first extension agent for white farmers.

In early 1907, Sandy opened an extension office in Burkeville to serve farmers in adjoining counties. In February, the General Education Board awarded Virginia $4,500 for demonstration work and appointed Sandy as state agent. Sandy hired agents to begin the outreach efforts and recruited farmers to participate in extension programs. The farmers agreed to tend a small plot, typically of less than five acres, and worked with agents to develop husbandry plans and follow budgets.

In 1914 the Smith-Lever Act assigned oversight of nationwide extension and demonstration programs to the Department of Agriculture. At that time, Virginia Tech became the designated institution to coordinate the state’s Cooperative Extension service. In 1916, Sandy moved the extension office to Blacksburg. Despite all of the changes and advances of the past 100 years, Cooperative Extension continues its mission of outreach, sharing information, and improving the lives of farmers.

Before the Cooperative Extension program, Americans received information about what to grow and how to grow it in a variety of ways. Many farmers relied on past traditions and resisted new practices, while others bought more modern equipment and cultivated new crops. One important source of information on new agricultural advances came from seed companies. Mail order seed businesses thrived at the turn of the twentieth century. The heavily illustrated and information rich trade catalogs appealed to both farmers and Americans who wanted a backyard vegetable garden or fruit orchard. Receiving seeds through the mail, rather than by traveling dozens of miles to a town, was an important convenience for farmers.

Special collections has a number of early twentieth century seed catalogs, featuring descriptions and colorful images of fruits, vegetables, and other crops. It is fitting that the same week Virginia Tech celebrated 100 years of Cooperative Extension, the department acquired a new seed catalog from 1903. The catalog comes from the Harry N. Hammond Seed Company, based in Bay City, Michigan, which was self-described as “The Most Progressive and Extensive Mail Order Concern of It’s Kind in the World!”

The first page of the catalog explained that between 1901 and 1902, sales increased 98 percent, which may account for why the company doubled its floor space and built a new warehouse. Robust sales may be attributed to the claim that direct mail order of seeds saved the customer 100-200 percent than if they purchased through a retailer. As for their subscribers, the company expected to mail out 500,000 (yes, half-a-million) catalogs to interested buyers. Oddly enough, according to OCLC Worldcat, just two libraries hold the 1903 catalog. Of course many libraries with collections of trade catalogs may not catalog the titles individually or catalog them at all.

Anyway, back to the seeds. The catalog begins with several varieties of potatoes, with “Hammond’s New Extra Early Admiral Dewey Potato” as perhaps the best choice for patriotic Americans who want to remember victory at Manila Bay, just five year prior, while baking, frying, or boiling their tubers. The catalog offered customers an enormous selection of garden staples such as beans, celery, beets, carrots, sweet corn, onions, cabbage, and melons.

For farmers, the catalog listed a wide selection of grains (oats, barley, wheat, corn, and millet) and grass seeds for hay and pasture. Like other such companies, Hammond’s featured page-after-page of flower seeds. Finally, the last page of the catalog advertised the company’s health food (malted grains and nuts treated with Pepsin) which came in packets and could be served cold with milk or cream, or mixed with hot water. The healthful product promoted good nutrition and digestion, but the advertisement said nothing about the taste. The company encouraged buyers to add an extra $0.15 to their seed order and try a packet for “Breakfast, Dinner, or Supper.”

For today’s readers this seed catalog is comical at times and sometimes disconnected from the present. In 1903, this type of trade publication provided Americans with a great deal of information about new crops and growing methods. Even though we take Cooperative Extension for granted, its services provide farmers and backyard gardenerd with reliable information about planting, growing, and cultivating just about anything.

More importantly seeds have modern day significance. Across the country, farmers markets are full of heirloom fruits and vegetables, farmers operate active seed exchanges, and growing numbers of Americans demand that their plates contain no genetically modified foods. It seems that the seeds of the past have enormous value in the present.