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a International Sports Turf Institute and Texas A&M Univ., P.O. Box 10065, College Station, TX 77840
b Turfgrass Information Center, Michigan State Univ. Libraries, East Lansing, MI 48824-1048
* Corresponding author (cooking1{at}msu.edu)
Received for publication January 5, 2007.
ABSTRACT
Professor William James Beal (1833–1924) became a leading educator and researcher in applied plant science while serving on the faculty of the new State Agricultural College in Michigan from 1871 to 1910. He was a key leader of the experimental movement of agricultural botany. Beal conducted the (i) first demonstration of hybrid vigor by controlled crossing of corn lines, 1878; (ii) initiation of the oldest ongoing U.S. botanical experiment involving the vitality of buried seeds, 1879; and (iii) first turfgrass experiments, including polystand compatibility, 1880. He initiated early, extensive seed purity/viability testing in 1877, and also organized the oldest, continuously operating U.S. botanical garden in 1877. He was an early advocate for forest conservation and reforestation. These works resulted in more than 1200 papers, plus seven extensive texts. Beal was a key proponent of scholarly communications among the few isolated scientists active in applied botany and in agricultural research. His efforts contributed to the formation of several important early national agricultural science organizations. Beal was a key founder and first President of the (i) Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science (SPAS), 1880; (ii) Association of Botanists in the United States Agricultural Experiment Stations, 1889; (iii) Botanical Club of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1888; and (iv) Michigan Academy of Science, 1884. The visionary outlook in organization of the SPAS was a vital pioneering step leading to formation of the American Society of Agronomy in 1907.
Abbreviations: AAAS, American Association for the Advancement of Science • SPAS, Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science
THROUGH ENORMOUS ENERGY AND DEDICATION, Dr. William James Beal pioneered applied botany research of economic plants, taught functional botany via keen observations in the real world of the outdoors and in a laboratory via the microscope, and was a key forefather in founding the American Society of Agronomy and other specialty agricultural science organizations. It is important to understand and appreciate the environment and conditions during the early formative years of this pioneering applied botanist when the term agronomist was not used in the USA.
FORMATIVE YEARS
William Beal was born on 11 Mar. 1833 and was raised in the wilderness of the southeastern Lower Peninsula, near Adrian, when Michigan was a territory (Beal, 1915). His parents, William and Rachael S. (Comstock) Beal, were pioneering Quaker settlers/farmers from New York state. This was the Western frontier in the 1830s to 1840s. Young William Beal was raised in virgin forested lands with scattered clearings; the soil was tilled with wooden plows; crops were planted among the tree stumps; wetlands and mosquitoes were numerous; resident Native Americans lived nearby; deer, wolves, black bear, fox, and badgers were common; and land was sold by the U.S. government for U.S. $1.25 an acre (Beal, 1925). He experienced practical farming activities typical in those times plus 1 yr of gristmill work, while also attending Raisin Valley Seminary and Lodi Academy (Beal, 1915).
William Beal was raised in a log cabin with wet-clay plaster filling and no nails; cooking was by an open, stone, wood-burning fireplace; basic winter provisions were wheat flour, corn meal, salt pork, potatoes, and pumpkin; clothes were home-spun; nocturnal lighting was via candles, but there was little reading material; and family transportation was by horse-drawn wagon or buggy on rudimentary dirt–mud paths (Beal, 1925).
The education of William Beal was an extended process due to financial limitations. His college studies were initiated in 1855 in nearby Ann Arbor, and included limited course offerings in natural history that emphasized taxonomy. He earned an Artium baccalaureus (A.B.) degree in Classical Studies of Greek, Latin, and mathematics from the University of Michigan in 1859, and an Artium magister (A.M.) degree in 1862 (Beal, 1915).
He accepted a teaching position in natural science at Friend's Academy in Union Springs, New York, working there from 1859 to March 1861. William Beal then entered Harvard University in 1861 (Fig. 1) where he studied with Professor Louis Agassiz in zoology and Dr. Asa Gray in systematic botany. It was Prof. Agassiz who introduced student Beal to a laboratory method of instruction using live specimens, usually marine animals (Bessey, 1925). From 1863 to 1868 he taught at Howland Institute in Union Springs, New York, except for one semester at Harvard University in 1865, graduating with a Scientiae baccalaureus (S.B.) degree. William Beal served as a Professor of Natural History at the original Chicago University from 1869 to 1871, as well as a lecturer at several other schools. Included was a July 1870 botany lecture at the State Agricultural College, East Lansing, MI (Beal, 1915).
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Dr. Asa Gray told student Beal in 1862 that there was little chance to earn money teaching only botany at the college level (Baker and Baker, 1925). This guidance did not deter Beal. His goal was finally achieved when in 1871 he became the only Professor of Botany and Horticulture on the faculty at the State Agricultural College in Michigan. The frontier conditions in Michigan were disappearing. The College had opened 13 yr earlier in 1857, and only 33 yr after Michigan entered the Union in 1837. By 1870, a total of 59 students had graduated since the first class of 1861. There were seven faculty, an increase from four in 1857, with an enrollment of 132 students, including 83 in Agriculture. The College buildings consisted of College Hall, Williams Hall, and Saint's Rest dormitory, plus a brick horse barn and four faculty houses. The research facilities included a farm foreman's house, cattle barn, piggery, and greenhouse.
Subsequently, Professor Beal earned a Master of Science (M.Sc.)1 degree from Chicago University in 1875. Beal received an Honorary Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) from the University of Michigan in 1880, an Honorary Doctor of Science (D.Sc.) from the Michigan Agricultural College in 1905, and an Honorary Doctor of Agriculture (Agr.D.) from Syracuse University in 1916. He also was honored as a recipient of the Silver Medal from the American Pomology Society and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Beal retired in 1910 at age 77 and was designated Professor Emeritus of Botany.
Beal's faculty position assignment originally was as Professor of Botany and Horticulture in 1871, then Professor of Botany and Forestry in 1881, and eventually Professor of Botany in 1902 (Beal, 1915). These title changes occurred as new Departments of Horticulture and then Forestry were formed. This acceptance of change reveals his focus on progress for the scientific specialties in agriculture, rather than a protectionist attitude for personal interests.
PIONEERING APPLIED BOTANY RESEARCHER
Professor Beal was a key influential pioneer contributing to the emergence of experimental economic botany in the USA. His diverse interests and investigations ranged among berries, forages, forestry, grain crops, fruit trees, turfgrasses, vegetables, and weeds. He was one of the early university scientists to combine a practical program of field botanical experimentation with sound research methods and critical thought. Much of his pioneering research was accomplished before 1887 when the Hatch Act granted federal funds for the establishment and annual support of state agricultural experiment stations. Beal's research contributions were extraordinarily diverse and numerous, which reflected the needs of that time in rural America.
Breeding Studies
Professor Beal was one of the first to promote the advantages of plant selection for economic species and controlling parentage to increase yields. Up to that time, botanists were generally of the view that crop improvements were the responsibility of farmers. Beal's effort involved both selection and crossing within a wide range of species including bean (Phaseolus spp.), cherry (Prunus spp.), clover (Trifolium spp.), corn (Zea spp.), crabapple (Malus spp.), gooseberry (Ribes spp.), grape (Vitis spp.), onion (Allium spp.), raspberry (Rubus spp.), tomato (Lycopersicon spp.), and wheat (Triticum spp.) (Beal, 1878). In the mid-1870s, Beal began the first use of practical controlled pollination crosses in an attempt to increase corn yields (Beal, 1876) much motivated by the tentative reports of Charles Darwin and encouraged by Asa Gray. As he noted, "I have for some time been convinced that there was as much opportunity for using skill in breeding corn as in breeding any kind of domestic animals" (Beal, 1877). He detasseled corn plants from alternate rows to make them exclusively female and crossed them with corn plants of another variety. The resultant hybrid corn seeds produced plants with 53% higher yields than either parent (Beal, 1878). Later Beal arranged cooperative trials with researchers in several states in which yields of crossed varieties of corn were compared with yields of the parents (Beal, 1880). The results confirmed his original findings (Wallace and Brown, 1956). Thus Beal pioneered practical approaches to the modern heterosis concept via varietal crossing and pollination control that ultimately led to modern hybrid corn production (Crabb, 1947; Wallace and Brown, 1956; Goldman, 1999).
Forestry Studies
Professor Beal was one of six key college botanists to introduce the concept of forest science and related cultural practices. In the 1870s, when Michigan was the leading lumber producer, Beal was ridiculed for advocating forest conservation and reforestation. By 1875, he had initiated comparative growth rate studies of 
275 tree species planted from seeds and transplants (Beal, 1880). This addressed the need for reforestation programs to aid recovery of lands devastated by logging. Beal pioneered methods of silviculture including the evaluation of timber species, development of forest nurseries, and site preparation, transplanting, and culture of forest trees (Telewski, 1998). The Beal Pinetum planted in 1902 and the Arboretum planted beginning in 1873 (Telewski, 1998) are still preserved on the Michigan State University campus (Beal, 1898b, 1902). Beal initiated the first state Forestry Convention in 1888 and procured legislation creating the first Michigan Forestry Commission on which he served as a Director from 1888 to 1892 (McKibbin, 1924). The goal was to establish a comprehensive state forest policy.
Seed Studies
Professor Beal initiated extensive seed-testing for viability and purity in 1877, just as the first formal seed-testing laboratories were being established in the USA. He was an early proponent of a new concept that weed-free seed produced higher yields. Beal demonstrated extraordinary patience in 1879 by initiating what is now the oldest ongoing botanical experiment in the USA. It was a seed viability study of 21 plant species, mostly weeds. Approximately 1200 seeds were mixed in sand, placed in twenty sets of pint bottles, and then buried (Beal, 1880, 1886). In 1904, after 25 yr, seeds of eleven species germinated (Beal, 1905), and after 50 yr in 1930 seeds of five species germinated—black mustard [Brassica nigra (L.) Koch], marshpepper smartweed [Polygonum hydropiper (L.)], common evening primrose [Oenothera biennis (L.)], curly dock [Rumex crispus (L.)], and moth mullein [Verbascum blattaria (L.)] (Darlington, 1931). Most recently, after 120 yr in 2000 seeds of two species germinated—common mallow [Malva rotundifolia (L.)] and a mullein (Telewski and Zeevaart, 2002). Beal pursued active seed investigations for 30 yr, and amazingly one of these studies continues to this day.
Turfgrass Studies
The first turfgrass research in the USA was conducted by Professor Beal starting in 1880. Both monostand characterizations and adaptation of a world grass collection, as well as polystand compatibility studies, were conducted and published (Beal, 1892, 1893; Beard, 1973). In one study Beal attempted to provide a season-long green turfgrass polystand without irrigation by combining cool-season Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis L.) and warm-season bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon L.) (Beal, 1892). This original experiment was not successful, but remnants of the bermudagrass survived. Beal had acquired bermudagrasses from around the world by 1880, and in 1892 he reported bermudagrass spreading over dry, sandy areas on the main campus (Beal, 1892). Through natural selection for tolerances to freeze stress and to regular mowing on the Michigan State University central campus, a distinct variety emerged and spread across the grounds including recently developed areas. This unique germplasm introduced by Beal has been the source of freeze tolerance that breeders have used in developing bermudagrass cultivars adapted for turfgrass use in the transition climatic zone. Although Beal's experiment failed initially, one hundred years later it is making significant contributions.
BOTANICAL GARDEN
Professor Beal designed the oldest, continuously operated botanical garden in the USA in 1877 (Fig. 2). He used it as an outdoor teaching and research laboratory. Included was a Grass Garden of 80 native and introduced species established in 1872 in 0.9- by 2.7-m plots that was expanded to several hundred species. He also established an Arboretum of trees, shrubs, and vines in 1873 that was eventually expanded to 274 species by 1880. In 1877 the botanical collection was expanded with herbaceous dicotyledons, including weeds, which Beal called the Wild Garden. The Botanical Garden consisted of >2100 species and varieties in 1910 when Professor Beal retired. It was officially dedicated by the Michigan Agricultural College as the W. J. Beal Botanical Garden in 1924, and continues as a sustained living botanical collection (see: http://www.cpp.msu.edu/beal/; verified 30 Apr. 2007).
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During his 40-yr tenure at the State Agricultural College/Michigan Agricultural College, Professor William J. Beal was an instructor for most of the undergraduate students in at least one course. He taught a wide diversity of subjects including botany, horticulture, forestry, landscape gardening, and plant physiology; plus even history through the 1870s (Kuhn, 1955). Beal was one of the first four college teachers in the USA during the early 1870s to introduce botanic laboratory instruction methods involving living plants and the use of compound microscopes (Bessey, 1925). Beal expounded his teaching philosophy in The New Botany (Beal, 1882, 1890). It was widely read and was a major pedagogic influence. Beal wrote, "In the whole course in botany, I hope to keep constantly in view how to prepare students to acquire information for themselves with readiness and accuracy." He encouraged students to first independently observe and draw conclusions on living plant samples, rather than to study only by the textbook recitation method, as had been the traditional approach. Then he would present a summary lecture. While educated in the old botany, Beal led the introduction of the new living botany method of instruction, which is considered one of his most significant accomplishments (Fig. 3).
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2000 plant specimens with him when he joined the State Agricultural College faculty in 1871. He continued to expand the collection, with many being type specimens that are the basis for the names of other plants of the same species throughout the world. The College herbarium totaled 106 000 specimens at the time of Beal's retirement in 1910. Beal also designed the first roads, pathways, and landscape plan for what is now the North campus of Michigan State University.
EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATOR
Professor William Beal was an engaging, widely sought speaker. He regularly presented talks at state and county meetings of the Grange and other farm, horticulture, pomology, and forestry groups. This was well before the Agricultural Extension Service was formed. A prolific writer, Beal's extended works included Grasses of North America for Farmers and Students: Volume I (Beal, 1887), Michigan Flora (Beal and Wheeler, 1892; Beal, 1904), Grasses of North America: Volume II (Beal, 1896), Seed Dispersal (Beal, 1898a), Michigan Weeds (Beal, 1911; Beal and Bessey, 1915), Seeds of Michigan Weeds (Beal, 1910a), and History of Michigan Agricultural College (Beal, 1915). The Grasses of North America was a monumental effort and a standard reference book for >50 yr. A 1910 partial list of Dr. Beal's prodigious writings totaled 1286 articles (Beal, 1910b) published in scientific and other periodicals, such as the American Journal of Sciences, American Naturalist, Proceedings of the American Pomological Society, Michigan Agricultural College Experiment Station Bulletins, Michigan State Board of Agriculture Reports, Proceedings Michigan Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science, and Transactions of the Michigan Horticultural Society. Dr. Beal also wrote an educational series titled Elementary Science Bulletins for Schools.
THE INDIVIDUAL
Professor Beal's experiences as a farm boy in a harsh rural environment formed his lifelong mission of working to assist farmers through practical applications of the emerging botanical sciences. This was achieved via his diverse areas of research, teaching, and writing. His austere manner masked a curious, dynamic mind, coupled with enormous energy and vitality. Idleness was not acceptable in his domain. Daily exercise or physical work was his norm. Beal was not known to take a vacation, for his love of scientific discovery and teaching consumed his life. A faculty colleague at Michigan Agricultural College commented that Beal did not occupy a University Chair, but an entire settee. Professor Beal did not hesitate to speak out on controversial issues in a scholarly and effective manner. But he also would utilize down-home phrases and proverbs in communications with farmers and students. A typical quip was "keep on squintin" which he used to encourage beginning students frustrated with microscope use. His son-in-law, writer Ray S. Baker, remarked that Professor Beal had "only three enemies in the world: alcohol, tobacco, and quackgrass" (Baker and Baker, 1925). In 1863 he married Hannah A. Proud of Rollin, MI, a friend of his youth.
NATIONAL RESEARCH SOCIETY BUILDER
Professor Beal was a pioneer and leader in the formation of organizations to facilitate scholarly communications among the few isolated scientists active in applied botany and in agricultural science during the 1880s. This was a key decade in the evolution of agricultural science (Table 1). He was instrumental in founding and served as the first President of (i) 1880–1881, SPAS; (ii) 1888, Botanical Club of the AAAS (He also was President of AAAS Section F– Biology, and thus Vice President of the parent group); (iii) 1889, Botanists in the United States Agricultural Experiment Stations; (iv) 1894, Michigan Academy of Science.
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The first meeting of the SPAS was held August 1880 in Boston, MA, before the AAAS conference. There were 12 in attendance, with the officers elected being William J. Beal (President), E. Lewis Sturtevant (Secretary and Treasurer), and G.C. Caldwell (Executive Committee Member). Other members participating were L.B. Arnold, M.A., Lecturer on Dairy Husbandry, Cornell University; A.J. Cook, M.Sc., Professor of Zoology and Entomology, Michigan Agricultural College; W.G. Farlow, M.A. and M.D., Professor of Cryptoganic Botany, Harvard University; M.C. Fernold, M.A., President of Maine State College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts; C.A. Goessmann, Ph.D., Professor of Chemistry, Massachusetts Agricultural College; B.D. Halsted, D.Sc., Editor-In-Chief of the American Agriculturalist, New York; R.C. Kedzie, M.A. and M.D., Professor of Chemistry, Michigan Agricultural College; A.R. Ledoux, M.A. and Ph.D., Analytical and Consulting Chemist, New York.; and L. Stockbridge, Professor of Agriculture, Massachusetts Agricultural College.
The original objective of the Society was, "the promotion of agriculture by fostering investigation in science applied to agriculture. For the accomplishment of this objective, its members shall meet annually for the presentation and discussion of original papers on subjects embraced within the scope of this field of inquiry, and for the consideration of plans for further investigation, either individual or cooperative" (Beal and Arnold, 1883).
Professor Beal served two, 2-yr terms as President of SPAS (1880–1882 and 1899–1901), as well as co-editor of the Committee on Publication, and subsequently as Custodian from 1896 to 1914. The Custodian functioned as an executive secretary.
Annual SPAS conferences were held, and Proceedings were published for the meetings from 1880 (published in 1883) thru 1920. Basically, SPAS was modeled after the National Academy of Science, but oriented to agriculture. Members were selected by a specific voting procedure and eventually were termed Fellows, with most also being AAAS Fellows. The original membership was restricted to 50, and was periodically increased until the total was over 100. The areas of scientific specialization of the SPAS members are summarized in Table 2. The most common professional specialties between 1882 and 1900 were botany, chemistry, entomology, and horticulture. Note the absence of the term agronomy through 1900, which was typical of agricultural science in the USA at that time.
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The etymology of agronomy is probably via the French agronomie that was a compound derivative from the Greek agros (field) and nomos (law) or customary administration (like nemein, to manage). Agronomy was a seldom-used term in the USA, but was in common usage in Europe during the 1800s. The 1864 Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language defined agronomy as "the art of cultivating the ground; agricultural." The terms agronomist or agrostologist were not included. Accordingly, European usage was applied primarily to the administration and economics of land. These usages are known in the USA as land or farm management and agricultural economics.
Throughout most of the 19th century the term agronomy was not used to describe a research-teaching specialty within U.S. academic institutions. During the 1800s individuals conducting what are now defined as agronomic activities in the USA typically were included in the agriculture category or as professors of agriculture, along with the economic and engineering aspects.
AGRONOMIC SCIENCE EMERGES
The academic meaning as applied to agronomy narrowed rapidly in the USA during the 1900 to 1910 period. The opportunities and needs for scientific developments and education in the crops and soils aspects were accepted by agricultural leaders and were made possible due to advances in the basic sciences. Typically, scholars and researchers in crop growth, physiology, ecology, and genetics emerged primarily from natural history and botany; and those in soil chemistry, fertility, physics, and morphology emerged primarily from analytical chemistry and geology. A modern (2007) definition of agronomy from Webster's Third New International Dictionary is "the branch of agriculture that deals with field crop production and soil management."
The University of Illinois established a Department of Agronomy in 1899 (Moores, 1970). Some other early Agronomy Departments included Iowa State University (1902), The Ohio State University (1905), the University of Nebraska (1905), Purdue University (1907), and Penn State University (1907). The USDA was reorganized in 1901, with formation of the Bureau of Plant Industry that included the establishment of agronomy positions circa 1902 (Carleton, 1910). A summary by Carleton of agronomy specialty positions within nine state agricultural experiment stations that had been established in the early 1900s is shown in Table 3. By 1903, agronomy had come into use as a principle line of work at United States Agricultural Experiment Stations, according to annual listings in the USDA Yearbook of Agriculture. There were 42 agronomist positions at U.S. colleges/agricultural experiment stations in 1905. The College of Agriculture at the University of Illinois listed the agronomy specialty in 1907 as including plant breeding, soil physics, soil fertility, farm mechanics, and crop production (True, 1907). The transition of crop culture from an art-dominated endeavor to science-based cultural systems was underway.
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The number of specialty positions in the agricultural sciences at universities and at federal and state organizations expanded substantially in the 1890 thru 1910 period. This led to interest in specialization of national organizations. A chronological summary of when nine national specialty agricultural science organizations were established is presented in Table 4.
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While not physically present at the meeting to organize ASA, there is strong evidence that William J. Beal (Fig. 5) was a key forefather contributing to the eventual founding of the American Society of Agronomy.
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The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Keith R. Widder and Susan M. Depoorter in the preparation of this manuscript.
NOTES
1 The Master of Science degree is designated "Sc.M." in historical sources, but "M.Sc." is used in throughout this paper. 
REFERENCES
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