<\/p>\n
After more than a hundred years we at last have a book devoted entirely to the career of the man who is justly called the Father of Maine Agriculture, Ezekiel Holmes. Waterville’s special interest in this man lies in the fact that he was Lecturer in Chemistry. Mineralogy, Geology and Botany at Waterville College from 1833 to 1837. Although much had been printed about Holmes in newspapers and magazines. we had to wait until 1968 for a full length biography, written by Clarence A. Day and published by the University of Maine.<\/p>\n
Ezekiel Holmes was born in Kingston, Mass. in 1801, and was graduated from Brown University in 1821. Though himself never a successful farmer. he became the leading advocate of scientific farming in Maine. Having relatives at Paris Hill, he came there from his Massachusetts home to study medicine with his Uncle Benjamin, an Oxford County physician. Deciding to get more formal instruction, he attended the Bowdoin Medical School, where he received the M.D. degree in 1824.<\/p>\n
During all his life Holmes practiced medicine very little, but chose rather to be a teacher and publisher. He taught for several years at the Gardiner Lyceum, a school started especially for agriculture and the mechanic arts by Robert Hallowell Gardiner, the wealthy patron of the Kennebec Valley. At Gardiner Holmes developed his interest in natural history, and assembled an impressive collection of minerals, birds and plants. He was in charge of the school farm and workshop. He left Gardiner when, for lack of financial support, the school had to close in 1831.<\/p>\n
Holmes then settled at Winthrop, where he started a farm paper, the “Kennebec Farmer”, later changing the name to “Maine Farmer”, and gradually making it the most prominent agricultural journal in the state. He was founder and ardent supporter of the Kennebec Agricultural Society and was enthusiastic promoter of Maine fairs.<\/p>\n
During his lecturing years at Waterville College Holmes was usually in Waterville two days a week when the college was in session though he seemed to have set up an unenviable record as absentee lecturer, failing to show up at all for some of the weeks. He in fact used the lectureship to provide him with a stopping place between his home in Winthrop and a farm that he owned in Starks. Winning a seat in the state legislature, Holmes put through a bill establishing the first geologic survey of Maine.<\/p>\n
It was inevitable that Holmes should have a long quarrel with another agricultural editor, William Drew. The latter had taken over an Augusta paper called the Intelligencer. While its main interest was agriculture, the Intelligencer paid more attention to religion than did Holmes’ paper, especially to controversial religious issues, for Drew was a belligerent Universalist preacher.<\/p>\n
The most trivial incidents were seized upon by either editor to attack the other. Once Holmes received and commented on some very large potatoes. So Drew wrote: “Our friend Holmes mounted his great potato, with sword in hand, hacking away at one end of it and is expected to get down from his proud elevation about the middle of next week.”<\/p>\n
Holmes replied: “Don’t squeal so loud, piggy. You shall have a piece with the rest of the hogs.” Later Holmes wrote: “Friend Drew is still squealing. We can satisfy any hog except a reverend one.”<\/p>\n
It was over the issue of the self-adjusting churn that Holmes and Drew waged their bitterest battle. When Holmes reported that the churn had won a gold medal at the World’s Fair in London in 1851. Drew quickly pointed out that the churn wasn’t even listed in the Fair’s published list of exhibits. It turned out that both Drew and Holmes were right. The churn had arrived too late to get into the published list, but it was exhibited. Yet Holmes was mistaken about the medal. An Englishman had also entered an item that he called an improved American churn, and it was that churn, not the Davis Self-Adjusting, that won the award.<\/p>\n
But, even after all those facts came to light, Holmes would not drop the subject. He proposed an epitaph to place on Drew’s tomb when that editor should depart from this life:<\/p>\n
“Hic jacet Brother Drew, who died of a patent churn;
\nThat epithet we place upon his funeral urn.
\nHis days were long extended in avaricious hope,
\nBut fortunately ended — he died without a rope.”<\/p>\n
Drew at once showed that he wasn’t dead yet. He wrote: “When we determined to expose the inaccuracies of Brother Holmes in regard to churns. we well knew the nature of the animal we were unkenneling. Some men seek protection by descending to a level that secures them from the attention of those they assail, and of such protection we freely give our neighbor the full benefit.”<\/p>\n
That kind of quarrel in print was typical of 19th century journalism. When, in the late 1860’s, Maine Republicans chose as candidate for Governor a young man who was not well known over the state, the Democratic Portland Argus produced a crude verse deriding that candidate:<\/p>\n
“Now here’s to Daniel F. Davis.
\nThe Hamlin-Blaine rara avis.
\nOnly Hamlin and Blaine
\nIn the whole State of Maine
\nEver heard of Daniel F. Davis.”<\/p>\n
Perhaps Holmes’ greatest achievement was his securing the establishment of a separate college of agriculture and mechanic arts, when Maine received its huge western land grant under the Morrill Act in the 1860’s. After many years of trying to establish such schools at high school level, Holmes was delighted when Congress provided the means to start state colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts. The law granted to each state 30,000 acres of federal public lands in the West for each Congressman from the state. Since Maine then had five representatives and two senators, its grant was 210.000 acres.<\/p>\n
The federal law did not demand new colleges. but permitted colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts to be set up within existing institutions. Maine had two long established colleges, Bowdoin and Colby, and a new college recently opened at Lewiston — Bates. Colby, then still named Waterville College, offered to change its name to Maine University and Agricultural College, if it should be named the recipient. Bowdoin made a similar offer. Then mediators proposed that the grant be divided, Colby getting the agricultural school, while Bowdoin got the mechanic arts. Partisans of Bates vigorously fought for a share. At one stage the State Senate accepted the Waterville offer, but the House turned it down. Then both houses voted in favor of a new and separate college. but postponed action on a site until the next legislature.<\/p>\n
President Champlin of Colby still was not inclined to give up the fight. He proposed a two-year course, with the student attending Colby one year, then Bowdoin for the second year, and at the end of the two years getting a B.S. degree. But the Champlin proposal got nowhere. Neither did the suggestion that the State Capital be moved back to Portland and the State House and grounds at Augusta used for the new college. Two large farms with their buildings were offered for the site by Benjamin Nourse at Orrington, and by F.O. Smith at Gorham.<\/p>\n
At that stage Bowdoin presented a new, attractive offer. Bowdoin would comply with the Morrill Act and relieve the state of all expense for the proposed college, if the State would hand over to Bowdoin the entire federal grant of 210,000 acres. Bowdoin agreed to set up a separate college under its regular management. and provide a building similar to that used by the Maine Medical School, and would also provide a farm, library, laboratory, necessary equipment and instructors.<\/p>\n
The climax came in 1865, when Holmes put on a vigorous campaign in opposition to the Bowdoin offer. He wrote: “Does Bowdoin propose to furnish buildings? Not at all. She does offer to provide a building like the old Medical College for a lecture room, probably right in the old Medical College itself. But not another house or shanty does Bowdoin propose to give. Your children, if they go there to study agriculture or mechanic arts, must either camp out on the plains or hire lodgings from private citizens. Not a room at the college for their convenience, not a roof for their shelter. Is that what you call an agricultural college? Is there a farmer or mechanic in Maine so green as to be willing to accept such an arrangement at the cost of $200,000 and call the result an agricultural college? If there is, Barnum ought to set him up as an exhibit of superlative vendancy.”<\/p>\n
On February 25, 1865 the Legislature passed an act creating a “State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts”, and a few months later Orono was selected as the site. Ezekiel Holmes’ great battle had been won. During his distinguished career Holmes was keenly interested in improved transportation, highways, canals, and. railroads. In the 1830’s, before the railroad had come to Maine, the agitation was for canals. Long interested in the development of the Aroostook region, where he often visited, Holmes pleaded for a big canal in that area. He wrote: “To build a canal through a part of Maine that is still wilderness seems fantastic, but it is not. It is not only desirable, but absolutely necessary. Railroads have not yet made canals obsolete. By water, up the Penobscot, over a portage, and down the Aroostook River, is the only way a prospective settler can reach the hamlets on the lower Aroostook without passing through a foreign country. That is how Dennis Fairbanks, first settler of Presque Isle, got the machinery for his grist and saw mill into the region. Some day we shall have wagon roads from Houlton to Patten, and from the Aroostook River to Madawaska, but right now the greatest need is for a canal to connect the Penobscot with the Aroostook.”<\/p>\n
Holmes also advocated a canal from Gardiner to Readfield via a chain of lakes, and he was called, of course, an impractical visionary. That canal was planned to connect Readfield and Winthrop with the Kennebec at Gardiner, by using the chain of lakes and the Cobbosseecontee Stream. He was quite a man, that Ezekiel Holmes, Father of Maine Agriculture and we congratulate Mr. Day and the University of Maine on giving him deserved, if belated, recognition.<\/p>\n
Year: 1968<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #778, Broadcast on October 20, 1968<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1199,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8853"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8853\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}