New York agricultural leaders oral history project, 1962-1968.
Collection Number: 13-6-428

Includes interviews with farmers, officials of the State Grange, New York State and American Farm Bureau Federations, the Dairymen's League, GLF, and other agricultural businesses, county agents, extension specialists, faculty and staff members of the New York State College of Agriculture, and others involved in agriculture in New York State.

Subjects discussed include student days in the College of Agriculture; production and marketing of beef poultry, dairy products, and apples and other orchard fruit; farm practice and management, including the use of cost accounting, access to credit, and procurement and management of labor; experiences in organizing farmers, particularly in fruit-marketing cooperatives; relationship of farmers to the Extension Service and Farm Bureau, impressions of early county agents, and farmers' reactions to tuberculosis and brucellosis control; formation of the American Farm Bureau Federation, activities of both the American and State Farm Bureaus, including the relationship between the two, decision making in the latter, and separation of the Farm Bureau from the State Extension Service; founding of the Dairymen's League, sources of support and opposition, decision making in the organization, milk control legislation, milk marketing, changing of the League from a bargaining to an operating organization, and its relationship to other milk-marketing organizations; formation of the Grange League Federation (GLF), raising its capital funds, decision making, research, development of retail and supply services, information and public relations, marketing activities, credit policies, establishing its insurance company, expansion of territory, and relationship to agricultural colleges, farm organizations, and competitors; the work of county agents and their association with the College staff, other agents, and county agricultural organizations; teaching, research, and extension work at the College of Agriculture, in agricultural economics, agricultural engineering, agronomy, animal husbandry, bacteriology, biochemistry, botany, conservation, entomology, farm practice, pomology, and vegetable crops; activities of Edward H. Thomson as president of the Federal Land Bank of Springfield, Mass.; Albert B. Genung's work in the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, USDA; George F. Warren's career, as recalled by his associates; Rockefeller Foundation-sponsored programs for crop improvement (1940-1962) in Mexico, Colombia, and the Far East; Halsey B. Knapp's experiences as director of the Long Island Agricultural and Technical Institute in Farmingdale and as leader of the Cornell-Los Banos Project at the University of the Philippines; and the characteristics of the seed business in New York State.

References are made to the organization or activities of the Conference Board of Farm Organizations, Dairy Farmers of America, Dairy Record Club, Empire Livestock Marketing Cooperative, Holstein-Friesian Association, National Poultry Industry Planning Committee, New York State Fruit Testing Association, New York State Horticultural Society, New York State Poultry Council, N.Y.S. School of Agriculture at Cobleskill, Northeastern Poultry Products Council, USDA Office of Farm Management, Pharsalia Project, Poultry and Egg National Board, Producers Cooperative Commission Association of Buffalo, Rochester Production Credit Association, Rural Radio Network, Soil Conservation Service, and Western New York Apple Growers Association.

There are also recollections of or references to Bristow Adams, G. F. Atkinson, H. E. Babcock, William Barrett, Liberty Hyde Bailey, Earl W. Benjamin, Maurice C. Burritt, Anna Botsford and John Henry Comstock, N. J. Cladakis, Lane Cooper, Edmund Ezra Day, Thomas E. Dewey, R. A. Emerson, Edmund H. Fallon, Livingston Farrand, Verne A. Fogg, Edward S. Foster, Fred Freestone, Beverly T. Galloway, Frank E. Gannett, Cedric Guise, Albert Hoefer, Ralph S. Hosmer, Lewis Knudson, Carl E. Ladd, Fiorello LaGuardia, K. C. Livermore, Albert R. Mann, James McConnell, Thomas E. Milliman, William I. Myers, James G. Needham, A. B. Recknagel, James E. Rice, William A. Riley, Isaac P. Roberts, Flora Rose, Willard W. Rowlee, Elmer S. Savage, Fred Sexauer, Earl Smith, Mark V. Slingerland, Leland Spencer, Samuel Spring, H. H. Whetzel, K. M. Wiegand, Burt Green Wilder, H. H. Wing, George A. Works, E. L. Worthen, Archie Wright, Martha Van Rensselaer, and Owen D. Young.

There are interviews with Albert Blanchard, William Barrett, Ray Bender, Frank W. Beneway, Earl W. Benjamin, Albert Blanchard, Bartow W. Bull, Walter Clickman, William L. Colton, James C. Corwith, Harold Cowles, Verne A. Fogg, Edward S. Foster, Bruce Gervan, Donald F. Green, Sr., Herbert B. Hartwig, Warren W. Hawley, Jr., Raymond C. Hitchings, John C. Huttar, George Lamb, Thomas E. LaMont, James McConnell, Elizabeth MacDonald, Thomas E. Milliman, Harlan B. Munger, Horace W. Norton, Edgar Raish, Seymour K. Rodenhurst, Orrin F. Ross, Fred D. Rumsey, Clarence M. Slack, Paul Smith, William S. Secord, Jared W. Stiles, Harold M. Stanley, Clayton C. Taylor, Edward H. Thomson, E. Victor Underwood, Reverdy and William P. Wadsworth, William Waldorf, and Carl Warren. Also, Cornell professors Richard Bradfield, Chester J. Bradley, Arthur J. Eames, Albert B. Genung, Anson W. Gibson, Van B. Hart, Herbert B. Hartwig, Glenn W. Hedlund, Glenn W. Herrick, Burton A. Jennings, Asa King, Halsey B. Knapp, Laurence H. MacDaniels, L. A. Maynard, Benton S. Monroe, William I. Myers, E. Laurence Palmer, Howard W. Riley, Gad P. Scoville, S. Reuben Shapley, Lloyd R. Simons, George W. Tailby, Homer C. Thompson, Edmund L. Worthen, Albert H. and Anna A. Wright, and Bailey Hortorium Curator Ethel Zoe Bailey.

Also, interviews with William H. Chandler, who taught pomology at Cornell from 1913 to 1923, conducted by Elizabeth I. Dixon, Librarian of the Oral History Program at UCLA, at the request of Gould P. Colman in early 1963. Transcript is dated 1965.

Most of the interviews were conducted by Gould P. Colman. Other interviewers include graduate students J. Warren Adair, Richard H. Bliss, Jonathan Levine, and Ethan Windahl.

New York Agricultural Leaders Oral History Project, #13-6-428. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.

Most transcripts require permission from heirs, legal representatives, or assigns to reproduce. Transcripts for Bradfield, Bradley, Bull, Clickman, Colton, Corwith, Hartwig, Lamb, MacDaniels, MacDonald, Stempfle, and Thomson are unrestricted.

Due to the fragility and potential degradation of moving image and sound recordings, viewing and listening is limited to items that have been digitized. If an item is in another media format, you may request to have the item digitized for access. Information on ordering access copies may be found on the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections webpage.

Audio visual media that has been digitized: TR-336, TR-17996 to TR-18001