FOLLOWING BIOGRAPHY ON BACK OF PLATE:

PROF. GEORGE W. CARVER, M. AG. A few years ago there was graduated at the Iowa Agricultural College a young colored man of unusual promise. His name was G. W. Carver, and his specially the care and production of plants. Not long after graduation he was engaged by Booker T. Washington as a teacher and assistant in his famous industrial school, and to-day the young man is Mr. Washington's most trusted adviser, while his reputation has gone abroad as a scientist and an original investigator of no mean order. Born during the period of the Civil War, he was separated from his parents when but six weeks old, they having been sold to some distant slave-holders. The infant was puny and ailing, and his master regarded him as worthless. A family named Carver took the babe and his brother, a little older. It was with them the child had a home for nine years. About that time the little black boy developed a remarkable love for plants, and so much knowledge of their structure and life, that he was given the name of "the plant doctor." Mr. and Mrs. Carver were proud of the boy's talents and made much of him,and it was their evident satisfaction in him that aroused the jealousy of their own children, who at last drove the two colored boys away from home. Northward they turned their faces, to the land where white and black have equal chances in life, as they fondly believed. The little "plant doctor," who had picked up the elements of an education, wanted, above all else, to enter some good school. The boys were, driven from pillar to post, but,,being devotedly attached to each other they held together, until in Kansas they thought best to separate. During these years, young Carver had tried many kinds of work. At length he found himself at Winterset, Iowa. It was there the wife of a physician encouraged him to go to Indianola where she thought he could enter college and earn his way by doing laundry work. He went there, but didn't get the work, and it was while there that a young lady, a well known Iowa artist, became interested in him. Under the pretext of securing his help in correcting some drawings, she went to the mean quarters he occupied and found him starving to death. There was no work for him, no money. For weeks, he had subsisted upon corn bread and tallow. She then arranged for him to go to the Iowa Agricultural College, where she had influential friends and where she believed he would have a chance. But, even at the Agricultural College of Iowa the color line was sharply drawn by the students. Persecution and ill-treatment were resorted to. But young Carver raid, "I will bear it, I must get an education. Here I will get work and I will suffer anything rather than give up the one chance of my life to obtain a schooling." His old and intimate knowledge of plants stood him in hand, and he was given charge of the green- houses. True, he was shunned by many, his place at table was with the servants, but he had warm friends and he was, by force of character, winning the good. will of all. One day an Indianola lady, who had come to know him before he left that place, went to visit him at his college. Dressed in her best, she accompanied him, though against his protestation, to dinner, taking a seat at the servants' table. The next time this lady visited the college the colored student sat at the table With the faculty. In the military drill he had taken the highest honors. When he was graduated it was with distinction. He wrote the class poem. He had succeeded in winning and holding friends. Some time ago he spent several weeks in Washington, D. C., and there the most kindly attention was extended to him by Secretary Wilson, who never fails to recognize merit wherever he may find It. The name of G. W. Carver is now enrolled on the fellowship list of wore than one scientific Institution.