Sherman Democrat
July 4, 1976
Grayson
County's Golden Waves of Grain
Ferguson
Pioneer in Hybrid Study
Alexander
M. Ferguson arrived at Texas A&M looking
like a typical country
youth. His woolen jeans, which cost 75
cents, shrank because they
got wet during a rain storm when he got off
the train for a few minutes
at Milano Junction.
Fresh from the country and his father's
farm,
Ferguson, then 16 years old, little dreamed
that he was destined for
fame. Neither did the youths on the
platform at the depot at
College Station realize that some day this
young Scotsman of slightly
above average height would be twice awarded
a fellowship in the
American Association for the Advancement of
Science.
That was in
1890 and Ferguson was launching his college
career. Working his
way through college, he receive his bachelor
of science degree in 1894
and his master of scence degree in 1896.
Later he studied and
conducted scientific research in northern
and central state
universities, Cornell University, Washington
University, and the
University of Missouri.
His career as a scientist, however, was not
started until 1899 after he returned from
the Spanish-American War and
began a professorship at A&M College.
At the turn of the century
there was no such thing as a variety of corn
for Texas.
Regardless of adaptability every
variety of corn was grown.
There was no way of checking the
ability of crop yield and each
farmer thought the variety he raised
superior to all others.
In 1900
Ferguson was appointed to a professorship at
the University of Texas in
Austin, where he served until 1906. It
was then that his real
life work began. He visited farmers in
the Bell Valley, south of
Austin, listened to their problems.
Those Bohemian, Irish and
Italian farmers were concerned over their
corn crops and the annual
yields. Ferguson gathered seeds of the
various varieties, and
began what were perhaps the first
experimental plots in the state.
He settled the question as to which seed
could produce the best yield.
At
that time, too, he did preliminary work in
the development of certified,
pedigreed seed. It was not until 1906,
however, when he came to
Grayson County and settled at Sherman that
he turned this avocation
into a vocation and established the Ferguson
Seed Farms, which were to
make him famous throughout the Southwest.
Later Ferguson moved to Howe, where he lived
until his death in 1855.
"Sandy"
Ferguson arrived at Sherman with no money.
He began working on a
book, which was finished in collaboration
with L.L. Lewis, a veterinarian at Oklahoma
A&M. Night after night he worked
into
the late hours at his home on Grand Avenue,
until the work was finished.
The
book, "Elementary Principles of
Agriculture," one of the earliest works
of its kind in the United States, became the
accepted text book in the
public schools of approximately 30 states.
In 1900 Ferguson began
his experiments on oat seeds. In 1909
he was awarded the gold
medal honor award at the National Corn
Exposition. His corn
has been widely grown and, like other seed
which he developed, brought
increased acreage yields for farmers who
used them.
The Agriculture
Year Book, 1936, published by the Department
of Agriculture, states
that Ferguson and two other Texans, Ed Kasch
and R.L. Bennett were
among the pioneers in the field of cotton
seed selection and breeding.
They were among those to develop seed
with rapid fruiting and early maturing
qualities.
The staple is better and more uniform
according to state experiment station
findings, the year book stated.
New
Boykin and Ferguson Triumph 406 were
developed by Ferguson Seed Farms
in 1908, according to the year book.
These strains were developed
from Mebane Triumph. Both are early,
small, low branching plants
with a seven-eights to an inch long staple.
The gin outrun was from 36 to 39 per cent.
The bolls are medium to large and the
fruit is storm resistant.
In terms of economics, Ferguson increased
the income of numerous farms through his
seed experiments.
Ferguson
was born on Jan. 7, 1874 and reared on a
farm in Bell County, the
youngest son of James E. Ferguson and Fannie
Fitzpatrick Ferguson.
His father was a pioneer Methodist
minister filling the early day
pulpits in Houston, Richmond, Victoria and
Austin prior to the Civil
War. After the war his father
established in Bell County the
second flour mill in central Texas, with a
gin, furniture factory and
saw mill.