Ohio History Journal

CHRIS CUMO

The Carmichael Case: Animal Science At

The Ohio Agricultural Experiment

Station, 1905-1921

The late nineteenth century was an important period in Ohio because agri-

cultural education and science began to take shape then. Farmers had wel-

comed the Morrill Act of 1862, and the Ohio legislature translated it into in-

stitutional form by creating The Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College in

1870, which the Board of Trustees renamed The Ohio State University in

1878.1 Its creation, however, meant little for agricultural experimentation.

Norton Townshend, the agricultural professor, talked about the value of exper-

imentation, but by his own admission he was overwhelmed by teaching du-

ties and had little time to spare for research.² The burdensome demands of in-

struction remained a complaint; as late as 1947 Howard Bevis bemoaned the

University's inability to conduct agricultural research because he could not di-

vert manpower and money from teaching students.³

What experiments the University conducted were oriented toward livestock,

a course which Townshend, who fancied himself a stockman, had charted dur-

ing the 1870s.⁴ In contrast, he manifested little enthusiasm for the plant sci-

ences. Although Townshend paid lip service to the importance of conducting

crop experiments, he annoyed farmers by allowing the College Farm to lan-

guish.⁵ Instead, he attempted to mollify farmers by pleading lack of man-

power and funds. Only between 1877 and 1881, when agronomist Charles E.

Thorne managed it, did anyone perform experiments with crops.

With the University committed to teaching and incidentally to livestock re-

search, the question of what institution would devote itself full time to agri-

Chris Cumo is a history instructor at Kent State University, Tuscarawas Campus.

1. For a convenient summary of these developments, see Robert E. Whitmoyer, The View

from the Towe; An Anecdotal History of the Wooster Campus at OARDC (Wooster, 1992), 4.

2. Proceedigs of the Forty-Second Annual Session of the Ohio State Agricultural Convention

(Columbus, 1887), 86.

3. Howard L. Bevis to E. C. Dix, 26 February 1947, The Ohio State University Archives,

Record Group 3/h/2/1, Columbus, Ohio.

4. Norton S. Townshend, "Lecture Before the Shorthorn Breeders Convention," in Thirty-

Fourth Annual Report of the Ohio State Board of Agriculture, 1879 (Columbus, 1880), 464-66.

5. Charles E. Thorne, "The Romance of Ohio Agriculture:  The Ohio Agricultural

Experiment Station Was Fifth Such Institution," Ohio Farmer, 16 April 1927, 6.

32                                                             OHIO HISTORY

cultural experimentation and to crop growers became acute by the early

1880s. After false starts, the state legislature created the Ohio Agricultural

Experiment Station in 1882.6 Soil exhaustion was then Ohio's most in-

tractable farm problem, and Townshend's failure to do more than talk about it

gave the Station entree into crop experimentation.⁷    In 1887 the Station's

Board of Control appointed Charles Thorne as director to tackle this prob-

lem.⁸ The Board could not have chosen a better director since Thorne had ded-

icated his life to agricultural improvement through science. In 1863 and 1864

he had attended Antioch College and Michigan Agricultural College, each for

one year, before returning to Ohio to work on the family farm and write free-

lance articles for agricultural journals.  In 1877 Townshend hired him      as

foreman of the College Farm. It had languished to that point, but Thorne

promptly initiated trials with corn, wheat, and oats, and in so doing estab-

lished a reputation among farmers as a serious experimenter. Townshend

showed little enthusiasm for crop experimentation, however, and in 1881

Thorne left the farm to join Springfield's Farm and Fireside as associate edi-

tor, where he became one of Ohio's most prominent advocates for agricultural

experimentation in general and for improving soil fertility in particular. For

Thorne the improvement of soil fertility was tantamount to a religious cru-

sade, and as director he concentrated manpower and money toward his goal.

To achieve his aim, in 1892 he moved the Station from the rich alluvial lands

along the Olentangy river to the exhausted soils of an abandoned farm in

Wooster, where he established "a practical laboratory" for experiments with

crop rotations, fertilizers, and manure.⁹

The Station's crop-science orientation was plain to Oscar E. Bradfute, an

avid cattle breeder who was president of the Board of Control between 1902

and 1905.10 Bradfute argued that the Station could not justify allocating

6. "Sketch of the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station," First Annual Report of the Ohio

Agricultural Experiment Station for 1882 (Columbus, 1883), 19.

7. "Agricultural Meeting at Lansing, Michigan," Thirty-Fifth Annual Report of the Ohio State

Board of Agriculture (Columbus, 1880), 389; Charles E. Thorne, "The Romance of Ohio

Agriculture: Soil Fertility and Orchard Study First Work of Ohio Experiment Station," Ohio

Farmer, 23 April 1927, 6.

8. For biographical information on Thorne, see "Charles Embree Thorne, 1846-1936," Ohio

Farmer, 14 March 1936, 6; "In Memory of Charles Embree Thorne, 1846-1936,"

Administrative Circular 3 of the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station [1936], [1-7]; Robert W.

McCormick, "Norton S. Townshend, M.D.: Antislavery Politician and Agricultural Educator,"

Unpublished Manuscript, 1988, Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station Archives, Wooster, Ohio,

208,219.

9. "Charles Embree Thorne," Ohio Farmer, 6; Charles E. Thorne, "The Possible Wayne

Country Farm," Bulletin 304 of the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station (November, 1916),

215-16.

10. Historical records officer Robert E. Whitmoyer at Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station,

28 February 1994, transcript, Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station Archives, Wooster, Ohio,

2; Charles E. Thorne, Fifty-Year Index to Personnel and Publications of the Ohio Agricultural

Experiment Station (Wooster: Bulletin 501 of the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station, 1932),

The Carmichael Case                                                      33

money, energy, and time to animal research. He was already spending his tax

dollars to see that this work was done at the University and saw no reason

why he should spend more money for the duplication of such study at the

Station. Instead, he advised the Station to continue to focus on crop experi-

ments.

Moreover, its own internal events reinforced an orientation toward crop ex-

perimentation and away from livestock research. In 1899 bovine tuberculosis

swept through the Station's dairy herd, killing seventeen cattle; Thorne

lamented the catastrophe as an incalculable loss and admitted that he did not

expect the legislature to grant him funds to replenish the herd. 11 To make

matters worse, fire consumed the dairy laboratory and creamery in 1913; for-

tunately the cows were in their barn, a separate structure, and suffered no

losses.¹² Thorne did not rebuild until 1915.13 Perhaps he was unable to ob-

tain sufficient appropriations until then, or perhaps he had not perceived a

pressing need immediately to erect a new lab and creamery. Either way, these

setbacks did nothing to invigorate animal research at the Station.

Neither of these episodes, however, compared in furor to the Carmichael

case. In 1905 the Board of Control had appointed Berton E. Carmichael chief

of the Station's new Animal Husbandry Department.¹⁴ The was a critical

time, for that year Thorne publicly admitted for the first time that stockmen

had been criticizing the Station for ignoring their interests.¹⁵ He attempted to

diffuse the attack, first, by blaming the legislature which had never, he

charged, allocated sufficient funds for the Station to pursue livestock research.

This assertion may have had merit. Since Townshend's unsuccessful attempt

in 1880 to cajole the legislature into creating an experiment station with a

ten-thousand dollar appropriation, no one had pried from it much money for

agricultural research.16 Second, Thorne argued that the Station could best

serve farmers by tackling their most intractable problem. Given this, he was

obligated to pour his energies into helping farmers improve soil fertility.

If Thorne could not spare himself in service to stockmen, then this respon-

sibility fell to the new Animal Husbandry chief. Carmichael had graduated

5.

11. Eighteenth Annual report of the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station, 1899, 295-96;

Charles E. Thorne to Cleveland Provision Company, 13 April 1899, Charles E. Thorne Letters,

14 March 1899 to 7 May 1900, No. 58, Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station Archives,

Wooster, Ohio.

12. Thirty-Third Annual Report of the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station for the Year

Ending June 30, 1914 (Wooster, 1914), 22.

13. Thirty-Fourth Annual Report of the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station for the Year

Ending June 30, 1915 (Wooster, 1915), 25.

14. [Charles E. Thorne], "The Carmichael Case," [Long Version of an Unpublished

Manuscript], Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station Archives, Wooster, Ohio, 1.

15. Charles E. Thorne, "Report of the Director," in Twenty-Fourth Annual Report of the Ohio

Agricultural Experiment Station for the Year Ending June 30, 1905 (Wooster, 1905), 7.

16. "Agricultural Meeting at Lansing," 389.

34                                                      OHIO HISTORY

from the University of Illinois in spring 1905 with a B.S. in animal hus-

bandry, and upon arriving in Wooster he initially worked "with great enthusi-

asm," apparently recognizing his opportunity to create an animal research

program where none had previously existed.¹⁷

Thorne was pleasantly impressed by Carmichael's diligence and now saw

his opportunity to establish, at least, a legitimate livestock research program.

In 1907 he hired E. B. Forbes, the Station's first full-time scientist with a

Ph.D., to create a Nutrition Department.18 Forbes appeared to be the right

man for the job.   He had been a professor of animal nutrition at the

University of Missouri, where, in hog-raising territory, he had established a

reputation as an expert in the mineral nutrition of swine. Thorne anticipated

that Forbes would make the Ohio Station a center for hog nutrition studies

and, in so doing, win allegiance from western Ohio's hog raisers.¹⁹

Carmichael, however, did not share Thorne's enthusiasm for his new col-

league. He viewed all livestock studies as his fiefdom and Forbes as a rival

lord, and thus deeply resented that he had to cede most of his livestock nutri-

tion research to Forbes.20

Carmichael managed, however, to retain the feeding trials of horses and cat-

tle by persuading Thorne that he was nearing the climax of these investiga-

tions. In 1908 he published two bulletins outlining the preliminary results

of these trails, promising a definitive publication soon.

This was an empty assurance; he thereafter ceased to work productively.

Instead he bought sixteen horses, fed them to maturity and sold them. He

next purchased twenty Belgian fillies for the ostensible purpose of beginning

breeding experiments. Although he amassed a large herd during the next

decade, he failed to publish even one account of this work.

While presumably engaged in this study Carmichael asked Forbes, in late

1916 or early 1917, for permission to use part of his laboratory to investigate

"the chemical composition of meat."²¹ This was a clumsy incursion into the

latter's domain, and Forbes saw it as such. He promptly refused, citing lack

of laboratory space and remarking that even with space he would have de-

murred since Carmichael "had not shown the courtesy and consideration essen-

tial to harmony in the joint use of the same equipment.^"22

Forbes then apparently complained to Thorne, who now intervened. On

January 18, 1917, he warned Carmichael to drop his attempt to encroach on

Forbes' turf, reminded him of his promise in 1908 to conclude his feeding tri-

17. [Thorne], "The Carmichael Case," [Long Version], 1.

18. Twenty-Sixth Annual Report of the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station for the Year

Ending June 30, 1907 (Wooster, 1907), 9.

19. [Thorne], "The Carmichael Case," [Long Version], 1.

20. Ibid., 2.

21. Ibid., 2.

22. Ibid, 3.

36                                                    OHIO HISTORY

major in the Army's sanitary corps.²⁴ Thorne believed that with Forbes an

ocean away for the foreseeable future, the feud would subside. He even hoped

that Carmichael would finally return to work and that he would be able, at

last, to boast a legitimate livestock research program.

Instead, in a letter to the sanitary corps that February Carmichael accused

Forbes of punching a subordinate. Worse, in the midst of America's crusade

against the Kaiser, he disparaged him as an unpatriotic lout who had refused

to buy liberty bonds and had never attended the parades for Wooster's soldiers.

Although these charges ultimately did not dissuade the Army from com-

missioning Forbes, they made public the internecine squabble between

Carmichael and Forbes. Thorne was predictably outraged and summoned

Carmichael to an emergency session of the Board of Control on March 1.25

There Carmichael impressed no one by hiding behind the excuse that he had

hoped to protect the Army from unknowingly commissioning an unpatriotic

officer. The next day Thorne suspended him without pay, and on March 7 the

Board fired him.

Carmichael immediately appealed to the Ohio Civil Service Commission

for reinstatement. At a hearing on May 21 he argued that the Board had un-

fairly discharged him for making factual statements to the Army. Carmichael

was a his best or worst, depending on one's viewpoint, at this hearing, dis-

playing his ability to clutter an issue with red herrings and to impugn others

on the pretext of faithfully following orders. He now asserted that he had

only mailed his letter attacking Forbes after Thorne had reassured him that it

was his duty to do so.26 This statement was surely a lie, and when Thorne,

who represented the Board of Control at this hearing, objected, Carmichael

shifted the ground to Forbes' character. The fact that his character was irrele-

vant to the hearing did not deter Carmichael, who now enlarged his original

assertions by claiming that Forbes had taken a small plot at the Station for

his own uses on the pretext of making a victory garden. Worse, Forbes had

pleaded poverty when refusing to buy liberty bonds though he had sufficient

resources to drive a Buick. This was a deft stab; Woosterites were plain folks

who drove Fords and viewed Buicks as extravagant. Finally, Carmichael as-

serted that Forbes was so greedy that he had attempted to draw his full salary

from the Station while in the Army.

For his part, Forbes had made himself an easy target for these charges. He

had indeed struck a subordinate around 1910 over a minor incident but had

immediately apologized to him.²⁷ The charge of double-dipping, though a bit

more complicated, was essentially true. Forbes had asked Thorne to continue

24. Ibid., 45.

25. Ibid., 7-11.

26. Ibid., 25-26.

27. Ibid., 30.

38                                                    OHIO HISTORY

Forbes, rather than himself, as the villain, and the Commission promptly re-

instated him, deeming his attack on Forbes as entirely appropriate.³⁰ A crest-

fallen Thorne complained to Governor James M. Cox that "the outcome of

this decision is that a man who has discredited himself . . is permanently

fastened upon the payroll of the State."

Since Thorne could not simply fire Carmichael, the thought now occurred

to him that he might abolish his position.³1 On January 15, 1919, he in-

formed Carmichael that the Board was consolidating Animal Husbandry and

Nutrition on February 1 and that Forbes would assumed charge of the new

Animal Industry Department. Thorne justified this move on January 19, an-

nouncing in The Wooster Republican that the Board was obliged to unify

these departments since work in Animal Husbandry had been "in abeyance for

ten years.^"32

If Thorne thought this maneuver would eliminate Carmichael, he had mis-

calculated. Carmichael, persistent as ever, sought a restraining order from

Lawrence Critchfield, judge of the Wayne County Common Pleas Court, to

thwart the merger.³³ His argument that the Board members had conspired to

remove him apparently persuaded Critchfield who on January 31 temporarily

enjoined the Board from united the two departments.

The ruling provided Carmichael only a brief respite since Thorne ordered

him on May 31 to vacate his residence in one of the Station's houses on the

pretext that "it was urgently needed for the housing of men whose duties made

it important that they should live near their work."³⁴ Carmichael was vulner-

able to this salvo; since his arrival in Wooster he had lived on the Station's

grounds, an economy no doubt prompted by his lack of an automobile and the

dearth of inexpensive housing in town. Surely desperate, he filed suit against

Thorne and the other Board members in the same court on June 6, asking

Critchfield permanently to prohibit Board members from colluding to deprive

him of work and lodging.

The hearing, which began on July 22, 1919, and continued until December

30, 1920, was an unedifying spectacle. On October 2, 1919, Critchfield held

Thorne in contempt and fined him one hundred dollars for refusing to answer

whether Carmichael was still the chief of Animal Husbandry.³⁵ For his part

Carmichael could not explain why, since his reinstatement in May 1919, he

had proposed fifteen different lines of investigation, had never concluded the

feeding trials of 1908, and had not published a single bulletin since 1908.

30. [Thorne], "The Carmichael Case," [Long Version], 39.

31. Ibid., 40.

32. "Throne to Consolidate Departments at The Experiment Station." The Wooster

Republican, 19 January 1919, 4.

33. [Thorne], "The Carmichael Case," [Long Version], 40-41.

34. Ibid., 89.

35. Ibid., 90.

The Carmichael Case                                                   39

Instead, he again relied on red herring and ad hominem attacks to rescue him

from his ineptitude. On November 13, 1920, probably at Carmichael's be-

best, Dwight Lincoln and Grant Case, secretary of the American Ramboulet

Sheep Breeders Association and president of the Ohio Poultry Association re-

spectively, filed a joint lawsuit against Thorne, charging him, first, with in-

competence stemming from "an uncontrollable mania to be revenged upon

any employe[e] who differs from him."³⁶ Second and more serious, they al-

leged that Thorne had misused public funds. At this point they produced the

audit of fiscal year 1918 in which John Bliss, the chief examiner, uncovered

overpayment of one worker, increased pay of another to cover medical ex-

penses, and a litany of waste, abuse, and theft, including the disappearance of

a watermelon.37 Third, they accused him of hindering the progress of animal

research at the Station.³⁸ This work had been "in a chaotic condition," they

asserted, until Carmichael had determined to build a first-rate program; but

Thorne had harried him at every turn.

These allegations were specious. With the exception of Carmichael, those

who knew Thorne, and Lincoln and Grant probably did not, from farmhands

to administrators at the United States Department of Agriculture, lauded his

integrity.³⁹ The Auditor of State had investigated Bliss' report and concluded

that Thorne had not misused any funds.⁴⁰ Indeed, as the example of the

stolen watermelon underscores, Bliss was an overzealous auditor who had

only magnified what was inconsequential. Finally, Thorne had attempted to

coax Carmichael as tactfully as he could to return to work. Carmichael rather

than Thorne had undermined animal research.

Critchfield saw the absurdity of these charges and dismissed them on

December 30. But on that day he also ruled in Carmichael's favor, perma-

nently prohibiting Thorne and the other Board members from unifying

Animal Husbandry and Nutrition and from removing him from his resi-

dence.⁴¹ The Board had undertaken such action, Critchfield ruled, to rid the

Station of Carmichael rather than to unify two departments. But the Ohio

Civil Service Commission had earlier reinstated Carmichael, and he could not

now be fired without cause.

At the critical juncture Thorne passed the directorship to Carlos Williams,

36. Ibid., 141-42.

37.  "Criticism of Director Thorne," [Unpublished Manuscript], Ohio Agricultural

Experiment Station, Wooster, Ohio, 5-12.

38. "Carmichael Case," [Long Version], 145.

39. George Williams to Charles E. Thorne, 29 June 1910, Charles E. Thorne Letters,

Queries, 1 May 1910 to 1 September 1910, The Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station

Archives, Wooster, Ohio; "In Memory of Charles Embree Thorne. 1846-1936," Administrative

Circular 3 of the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station [1936], 2-7.

40. "Carmichael Case," [Long Version], 171-79.

41. [Charles E. Thorne], 'The Carmichael Case," [Short Version of an Unpublished

Manuscript], Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station Archives, Wooster, Ohio, 7.

40                                                           OHIO HISTORY

the chief agronomist since 1903 and a close friend and collaborator in his ex-

periments in improving soil fertility.⁴² The tumult over Carmichael appar-

ently delayed rather than hastened this action. In February 1918 Thorne had

asked to retire at the end of that year, conceding that the administrative bur-

dens of being director required a young man's vitality whereas he was nearly

seventy-two.⁴³ Retirement then would afford him time, he hoped, to summa-

rize his lifetime of experiments with crop rotations, fertilizers, and manure in

a single publication. Thorne suggested that the Board appoint Williams as

his successor and allow him to resume charge of the Soils Department. In

view of Carmichael's antics, however, the other Board members asked Thorne

in March 1918 to shepherd the Station through this crisis.⁴⁴ Thorne agreed

only to a temporary extension of his tenure and in January 1920 renewed his

request to retire, now at the end of 1920; this time the other Board members

acquiesced, and on December 30, 1920, he turned over the reigns to

Williams.⁴⁵

Thorne's retirement did not mean that Carmichael had won. Now chief of

the Soils Department, Thorne could not endure the spectacle of his nemesis

permanently thumbing his nose at him; he immediately filed an appeal, and

the Court of Appeals finally saw Carmichael's behavior for what it was: in-

subordination and dereliction of duty.⁴⁶ On March 21, 1921, it upheld the

Board's decision to consolidate the two departments and ordered Carmichael to

vacate his residence or face trespassing charges. The next day a chastened

Carmichael returned his keys to Williams and plunged into obscurity. At

last, after haggling with Carmichael for more than a decade, Thorne had tri-

umphed.

But it was a Pyrrhic victory.     Carmichael had disgraced himself, and

Forbes, who had never recouped his reputation, had resigned at the end of

1920.⁴⁷ Animal research, inchoate before Carmichael's debacle, never fully

recovered. Not until Leo L. Rummell, a journalist, businessman, and agri-

cultural enthusiast, became director in 1948 did the Station have a chief who

would admit any interest in livestock research.⁴8 And even then, Rummell

42. "Ohio Experiment Station," Ohio Farmer, 22 January 1921,4.

43. Charles E. Thorne to George E. Scott, 24 February 1918, Folder: C. E. Thorne, Ohio

Agricultural Experiment Station Archives, Wooster, Ohio.

44. George E. Scott to Charles E. Thorne, 2 Mach 1918, Folder: C. E. Thorne, Ohio

Agricultural Experiment Station Archives, Wooster, Ohio.

45. Charles E. Thorne to Board of Control, Folder: C. E. Thorne, Ohio Agricultural

Experiment Station Archives, Wooster, Ohio.

46. "Carmichael Case," [Short Version], 7.

47. Annual Report of the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station for the year Ended June 30,

1921 (Wooster, 1921), 20.

48. For biographical information about Rummell, see "Leo L. Rummell," in "Seventy-First

Annual Report of the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station for the Year Ended June 30, 1950,"

Bulletin 705 of the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station (June 1951), 4; Helen Enlow, 75 Years

of Agricultural Research (Wooster: Public Relations Series 35 of the Ohio Agricultural

The Carmichael Case                                                    41

did not attempt to change the Station's research orientation.

But the Carmichael case was not entirely deleterious. It underscored that

the director oversaw the Station's daily operations and that this function could

not easily be circumscribed. Neither Carmichael nor his allies had been able

to overturn Thorne's decision. The case also underscored that a few disen-

chanted stockmen could not derail the Station's agenda. To the contrary, it

solidified that Station's focus on crop experiments and enabled Thorne and his

successors to concentrate manpower and money to a degree that would other-

wise have been impossible. In 1893 Thorne had launched an ambitious pro-

gram of experiments with crop rotations, fertilizers, and manure and helped

farmers increase average corn, wheat, and oat yields per acre by as much as

twenty percent between 1900 and 1919.⁴⁹ This achievement was but the first

in a list of triumphs which has included insect and disease resistant hybrid

corn and disease-resistant greenhouse tomatoes and soybeans.⁵⁰ Partly be-

cause of Carmichael the Ohio Station has coaxed ever more bountiful crops

from the soil.

Experiment Station, 1957), 20-21; "Leo L. Rummell," Biographical Files, The Ohio State

University Archives, Columbus, Ohio; "Former OARDC Director Dies Tuesday in Arizona,"

Wooster Daily Record, 29 August 1980, 8; "Three Named to Ohio Hall of Fame," Ohio

Farmer, 20 August 1966, 15.

49. Thirty-Ninth Annual Report of the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station for the Year

Ended June 30, 1920 (Wooster, 1920), 9.

50. Gene P. Hattel and William E. Krauss, "Production Agriculture-Crops," Ohio Report on

Research and Development (July-August 1975), 57-59.