I’ve just got back from my second trip to the US in three weeks. ((Don’t ask.)) After Ames, Iowa a couple of weeks ago, last week was the turn of Beltsville, Maryland. Again we were hosted by USDA-ARS, this time at the George Washington Carver Center, so again many thanks to our friends there for the hospitality.
A legendary African-American post-bellum agriculturalist, breeder, botanist and educator, Carver in fact provides a further connection between the two places, as he was a student and then a faculty member at Iowa State University. On gaining his masters degree in 1896, Carver was invited by Booker T. Washington to take charge of the Agriculture Department at the five-year-old Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, later Tuskegee University in Alabama, which he was adamant would “unlock the golden dawn of freedom to our people.” A gifted educator, he took his teaching on the road, by way of the mule-drawn Jesup Agricultural Wagon, built by the students and named after New York financier Morris K. Jesup, who provided the funds for it. Later replaced by a motorized vehicle, the original can be seen in the lobby of the Carver Center.
Another interesting exhibit in the Carver Center is the ARS Science Hall of Fame. This has been honouring ARS scientists for their achievements since 1986. Alas, although a number of breeders have made it, nobody involved primarily in the conservation side of genetic resources science has been elected. Yet.