Fred Whitford, coordinator of Purdue’s Pesticide Programs, and Andrew Martin, BS ’79, MS ’83, a pesticide program specialist, wrote The Grand Old Man of Purdue University and Indiana Agriculture in tribute to William Carroll Latta.

Proceeds from book sales will fund an annual scholarship for a Purdue Agriculture student. The scholarship will be based on academics and community service, two of Latta’s premier attributes.

The Grand Old Man is a biography that tracks Latta’s professional, personal and volunteer work. He is recognized as the father of the College of Agriculture and the Extension Service at Purdue, where he became the second-ever professor of agriculture in 1882. In his 54 years at Purdue, Latta started the four-year undergraduate program; founded the Farmers Institutes, the precursors of Purdue Extension; and wrote most of Purdue’s earliest agriculture research publications.

The book recounts Latta’s far-reaching influence on agriculture at the university, throughout Indiana, and nationally. Latta was an early and tireless promoter of the university and what it could do for the people of the state. From developing the four-year agriculture program, to conducting practical agricultural research before the creation of Purdue’s Agricultural Experiment Station, to leading Purdue’s agricultural outreach efforts to bring the university to the people, Latta’s contributions are still evident in Purdue’s modern-day agricultural programs.

“Approximately 5 million Indiana farmers were trained through Latta’s outreach programs,” Whitford says. “He worked hard to get science-based ag techniques to the farmers who needed them.”

Latta also initiated on-farm research and offered winter short courses for farmers who couldn’t attend the university’s two- or four-year programs.

“We found that what we do today is still guided by the same philosophy he used back then,” Whitford says. “And that is: Indiana citizens’ interests are our interests.”

The Grand Old Man of Purdue University and Indiana Agriculture is for sale through the Purdue University Press for $29.95. Go online or call (800) 247-6553. The book also is available through online book retailers.
Contact Whitford at fwhitford@purdue.edu