Educator at Pennsylvania State College, Missouri College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts; President of Kansas State Agricultural College and editor of the Kansas City Star.
1865-1925 | Artist: Robert Wadsworth Grafton (1876-1936)
Impact & Accomplishments
Henry Jackson Waters’ father was an agricultural leader in the state of Missouri; among the first there to breed Shorthorn cattle and Cotswold sheep and to rotate crops. He was also a pioneer in agricultural education, initiating Farmers Institutes in the state. His son was one of the early students at the Missouri College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts, earning his degree in 1886.
Upon graduation, Henry Jackson Waters remained as an instructor and assistant secretary of the Missouri State Board of Agriculture for two years, until he was named professor and experiment station agriculturalist at Pennsylvania State College in 1890. Five years later, he returned to Missouri as college dean and director of the University Experiment Station. Waters’ conducted elaborate experiments in feeding cattle and hogs and instructed graduate students in nutrition at the universities of Ohio and Illinois and at Iowa State.
After directing the impressive agricultural exhibits for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Waters took a one-year sabbatical to study animal nutrition abroad, at the universities of Leipzig and Zurich. He was president of the Missouri State Board of Agriculture in 1908-1909.
In 1909, Waters was named president of Kansas State Agricultural College, serving until 1917. During this period, President Waters also became engaged in secondary education, serving on the state school board and as president of the state teachers’ association. In 1915, he published the popular textbook, The Essentials of Agriculture. Two years later, Henry Waters left higher education to become editor of the Kansas City Star, considering it his new medium for outreach to the farmers of the state. Waters led Kansas’s preparation efforts during World War I, and in 1920, was appointed to the federal Industrial Commission by President Wilson.
Did You Know?
In 1915, Waters published the popular textbook, The Essentials of Agriculture.
The former Hill Crest Farm in Columbia, MO was donated to the Missouri Department of Conservation and named in honor of Henry Jackson Waters and C.B. Moss.
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