{"id":323,"date":"2024-04-26T20:11:55","date_gmt":"2024-04-26T20:11:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/?p=323"},"modified":"2026-04-13T23:15:44","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T23:15:44","slug":"manly-miles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/manly-miles\/","title":{"rendered":"Professor Manly Miles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Dr. Manly Miles, circa 1877. Image source: MSU Archives<\/a><\/span>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Manly Miles, M.D., (1826–1898) was a pioneer of scientific agriculture, becoming the first\u2014and only\u2014professor of practical agriculture in the United States when he was appointed to that newly created position at the State Agricultural College of Michigan. His contributions to the science not only helped to put M.A.C. in the forefront of the field, they created a legacy of experimental research that continues to this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Manly Miles was born July 20, 1826, at Homer, New York. At the age of eleven his family moved to a farm in the vicinity of Flint, Michigan, where he learned firsthand the day-to-day aspects of farm management. He attended Western Reserve College at Hudson, Ohio, and later Rush Medical College, Chicago, where he earned a medical doctorate in 1850. Dr. Miles returned to Flint to open a private practice, and in 1851 was married to Miss Mary E. Dodge.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Miles\u2019 interests ranged far beyond medicine, and in 1859 he closed his practice to take a position as Assistant State Geologist. In that role he extensively catalogued the fauna of the state, and \u201cdid more to develop the general natural history of [Michigan] than any other man either before or since.\u201d2<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1860, Dr. Miles joined the faculty of the Agricultural College as Professor of Zoology; he was retained through its reorganization<\/a> the following year and taught animal physiology and geometry as well. He resided at the westernmost of the original four professors\u2019 residences, later known as Faculty Row \u2116 4<\/a>. In 1864, \u201cSuperintendent of the Farm\u201d was added to his chair, and in 1865 he received an additional title, one wholly new at American colleges: Professor of Practical Agriculture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Professor of Agriculture, Dr. Miles took a strong hand not only in farm operations, but also in planning the course of agricultural study, making \u201c\u2018practical agriculture\u2019 actually one in science applied to agriculture.\u201d The college farm, he believed, was not merely a place for students to labor, nor was it meant as a money-making operation for the school; rather, it was a place where the teachings of the classroom could find real-world examples, and where scrupulous experimentation would provide data to improve the knowledge of farmers everywhere. \u201cMiles undertook experiments which, though they revealed few startling truths, demonstrated the fallacies in much of what passed for research.\u201d3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was much beloved by his students, being \u201cthorough, scholarly, and enthusiastic,\u201d \u201can easy and graceful talker,\u201d and \u201ca cheerful dispenser of this learning to others.\u201d That enthusiasm even carried over into field work, for he had no aversion to getting his hands dirty, and students \u201cwere never happier than when detailed for a day\u2019s work with Dr. Miles in laying out some difficult ditch or surveying some field.\u201d More often than not, Miles would be clad in his brown overalls, working right alongside the students.4<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Superintendent of the Farm\u2014and a polymath\u2014Dr. Miles designed and directed the construction of all of the major barns built during his tenure\u2014a sheep barn (1865), the \u201cpiggery\u201d (1870), and the \u201cnew\u201d horse barn (1872)\u2014also a windmill to pump a well, and probably most of the lesser farm buildings too. All of these saw heavy use over the next several decades (q.v. The Farm Complexes<\/a>). Meanwhile, he strove to improve the college\u2019s herds, traveling to the east to purchase purebred Short-Horn and Devon cattle, among others, while selling off its lesser specimens.5<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Miles toiled diligently to provide improvements and benefits to the College\u2014ultimately to his own detriment. He traveled frequently to the Capitol to shepherd appropriation bills through the state Legislature, often employing \u201ctricks\u201d and \u201cmanoeuvres\u201d to get the bills passed. What exactly these moves were is unclear, but according to Beal they \u201cdidn\u2019t tend to make it easier to get bills through in succeeding legislatures.\u201d Moreover, he appears to have made some enemies along the way, among them Governor John Judson Bagley.6<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1875, Bagley had firm control of the Board of Agriculture—he had appointed three of its six members, and renewed the appointment of a fourth—and, through them, had his own man, William Henry Pickering Marston, appointed Secretary of the Board (a move Beal deemed, without explanation, \u201cmost unfortunate\u201d). On Bagley\u2019s behalf, Marston gathered information from the faculty regarding Dr. Miles, some of whom called him \u201carbitrary and underhanded.\u201d Oddly, it is unclear where this deprecation came from; Beal cites this quote as adapted from an obituary in Popular Science Monthly<\/em>, but it does not appear in the original. And while Beal seems to take exception to the characterization, at the same time he claims, \u201cIt was next to impossible for Dr. Miles to work intimately with others without having his own way.\u201d†<\/a><\/sup> 7<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Portion of the Minutes, showing the heavy hand (and signature) of Secretary Marston. Although difficult to read in its entirely, the redacted text includes: \u201cGov. Bagley offered the following resolution[\u2026] Resolved that the Pres\u2019t of the College be instructed to secure the services of a competent Prof. of Agriculture in place of Dr. Miles.\u201d Image source: MSU Archives<\/a><\/span>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the end, with his two-thirds majority of the Board backing him, Governor Bagley demanded the resignation of Professor Miles. It is one of the uglier moments in the history of the Agricultural College, if for no other reason than that it led to a rare instance of redaction within the Minutes of the Board.8<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beal says Dr. Miles was \u201cdefiant when asked to resign,\u201d but the consensus among biographers is that he did in fact resign rather than force the Board to dismiss him. His defiance was fortified by an ace up his sleeve: he had a standing invitation to become Professor of Agriculture, at increased salary, at the Agricultural College of the Illinois Industrial University (now the University of Illinois at Urbana\u2013Champaign).9<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But perhaps there was something to Beal\u2019s \u201cimpossible to work with\u201d comment, for Miles only lasted for six months at Illinois before resigning \u201cdue to differences with higher up faculty.\u201d He continued his studies, taking a D.V.S. degree from Columbia Veterinary College, New York, in March 1880. He then took a position as Experimenter at Houghton Farm, a privately owned experiment station near Mountainville, New York. In 1882, at the behest of President Paul A. Chadbourne of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, he joined the faculty at Amherst as Professor of Agriculture. Miles resigned this position shortly after Dr. Chadbourne\u2019s death in 1886, and returned to Lansing where he remained the rest of his life.10<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

During his career Dr. Miles wrote several books, many of which became important texts in the field:<\/p>\n\n\n\n