"WE STAND ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS"
E.B. Hill Was One Such Giant.
by Scott M. Swinton
Chairperson and University Distinguished Professor, MSU Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
Chairperson and University Distinguished Professor, MSU Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
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E.B. Hill completed his bachelor’s degree at Michigan Agricultural College in 1915. He was part of a Michigan on the cusp of change, change in which he would play a major role. He studied in a spanking new Agricultural Hall, the second structure on campus built with steel girders. Visitors to M.A.C. mostly travelled by trolley or by horse-drawn carriage.
Agriculture in 1915 in Michigan—indeed in America looked much as it had in the 19th century. Although R.E. Olds had begun building automobiles in Lansing in 1901, motorized tractors were unknown on Michigan farms, which relied on hard labor by farmers, mules, and horses. |
M.A.C. Farm Management Department Staff - 1931 (l-r): Herbert A. Berg (1928), Elton B. Hill (1928), Paul A. Minneman (1930), Arthur H. Hauke (1931), Karl T. Wright (1929) Phillip F. Aylesworth (1931)
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The concept of scientific agriculture was radical, but beginning to take hold at M.A.C. and elsewhere. During E.B. Hill’s undergraduate studies, M.A.C. conducted its first farm management research on the cost of milk production. After Hill completed his Masters of Agriculture degree at M.A.C., while working as a farm management extension agent, he went to Cornell, where George Warren ran a pioneering program in farm management, to complete a Masters of Science degree in 1927.
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Armed with the latest learning in the field, E.B. Hill was named chairman of the new Department of Farm Management at M.A.C., a position he held from 1928 to 1949. Farm management focused on individual farms and how to improve decisions. E.B. Hill and his peers studied costs of production, encouraging farmers to keep careful accounts to enable identifying what made some farms more successful. Hill’s personal specialities included understanding what made for successful farms and identifying ways to transfer farm estates from one generation to the next. The research and outreach work of he and his faculty peers entailed frequent farm visits. His popular course on “Successful Michigan Farms” (Farm Mgt 404) put students on busses to go visit leading farms and learn from their managers. Hill and his Extension colleagues also led tours by farmers to see other farms and learn about innovative farm management.
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While E.B. Hill’s department focused on profitability for individual farms, M.A.C.’s Department of Economics housed other faculty who aimed to understand agricultural prices and how markets functioned. During the Great Depressions, farmers faced collapsing prices, making an understanding of markets and policy particularly important. Ultimately, good farm decisions depended not only on costs of production and improving productivity, but also on the prices received for farm products. The study of farm management and agricultural prices were driving mergers of faculty elsewhere, at places like Cornell and University of Wisconsin. In 1949, M.A.C. followed suit, merging joining Hill’s Department of Farm Management with price analysts from Economics into a new Department of Agricultural Economics under new leadership.
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E.B. Hill’s leadership in farm management continued thriving under the new structure. His focus on farm record keeping to enable farmers to compare their performance with that of similar farms became deeply engrained. In 1964, Michigan State made history by offering the nation’s first computerized service for farm record analysis, TelFarm (Today’s Electronic Farm Records for Management), which won the U.S. Department of Agriculture Award for Superior Service to Agriculture.
The management insights from E.B. Hill and his farm management colleagues helped to guide Michigan farmers through massive transformations in management. The nation had undergone two world wars and the Great Depression. Hill had written scores of articles and extension bulletins. The department he took over in 1928 with 11 staff members had grown to 50. By the time he retired in 1964, most Michigan farms relied on tractors, synthetic fertilizers to boost crop yields, and pesticides to protect those yields.
While E.B. Hill’s contributions were greatest in farm management applied to the research, teaching, and extension, he was professionally active at both the national and international levels. In 1942, before M.A.C. had even created a Department of Agricultural Economics, Hill was elected Vice President of the American Farm Economics Association at the national level. He was also among the pioneers in what became a hallmark of MSU agricultural economics: international engagement. He began with study tours to Europe during the 1930’s to learn from farm economists there. During 1938-39, he served as Acting Head of the Department of Agricultural Economics at the University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras.
Today’s MSU Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics bears a name with new adjectives that reflect a broadened mission from E.B. Hill’s original Department of Farm Management. But we continue to rely on farm records through the TelFarm program, and what we are today exists because E.B. Hill and his farm management colleagues built a much of our foundation.
E.B. Hill was a builder. I can see clear parallels between his role in building our academic department and his role in building a home for the Gamma Psi chapter of Sigma Chi.
Best regards,
Scott M. Swinton
Chairperson and University Distinguished Professor
MSU Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics
The management insights from E.B. Hill and his farm management colleagues helped to guide Michigan farmers through massive transformations in management. The nation had undergone two world wars and the Great Depression. Hill had written scores of articles and extension bulletins. The department he took over in 1928 with 11 staff members had grown to 50. By the time he retired in 1964, most Michigan farms relied on tractors, synthetic fertilizers to boost crop yields, and pesticides to protect those yields.
While E.B. Hill’s contributions were greatest in farm management applied to the research, teaching, and extension, he was professionally active at both the national and international levels. In 1942, before M.A.C. had even created a Department of Agricultural Economics, Hill was elected Vice President of the American Farm Economics Association at the national level. He was also among the pioneers in what became a hallmark of MSU agricultural economics: international engagement. He began with study tours to Europe during the 1930’s to learn from farm economists there. During 1938-39, he served as Acting Head of the Department of Agricultural Economics at the University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras.
Today’s MSU Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics bears a name with new adjectives that reflect a broadened mission from E.B. Hill’s original Department of Farm Management. But we continue to rely on farm records through the TelFarm program, and what we are today exists because E.B. Hill and his farm management colleagues built a much of our foundation.
E.B. Hill was a builder. I can see clear parallels between his role in building our academic department and his role in building a home for the Gamma Psi chapter of Sigma Chi.
Best regards,
Scott M. Swinton
Chairperson and University Distinguished Professor
MSU Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics
P.S. – Most of the specific details that I have shared about the history of our department prior to 1970, I owe to Elton B. Hill’s history, “Then & Now 1906- 1972: A Pictorial History of Agricultural Economics at Michigan State University,” which can be found online at https://www.canr.msu.edu/afre/about/history. I hope one day to have the opportunity to explore the papers that he archived with Michigan State University Libraries.
To learn more about E.B. Hill and his coaching and mentoring of young men, Gamma Psi of Sigma Chis, for over half a century, click here.
