NCSU Libraries Focus Online

Volume 22 number 2 - Winter 2002

By Lois F. Black, Special Collections

The NCSU Libraries' Special Collections Department has significantly expanded its holdings in the area of agriculture during the past year, thanks to a series of donations and bequests. Among the collections received were the papers of John Stephen Campbell, Ralph Cummings, and the North Carolina Farm Bureau. Both the Cummings and Campbell collections, which complement each other, include research materials on tropical agriculture.

The Campbell Collection

The Campbell collection, which was received last winter, encompasses tobacco cultivation. The majority of Campbell's professional library will be added to the Libraries' main collections, while his papers will be available for use in Special Collections after the collection is processed.

Campbell was born in London, England, on April 4, 1923. He attended Reading and Cambridge universities and completed graduate studies at Trinidad's Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture in the West Indies and at Harvard University. He died on September 12, 2000.

Campbell's work carried him around the world. After serving in the British navy, he worked as an agricultural officer in the Department of Agriculture in Nigeria. He then crossed the Atlantic to become senior lecturer at the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture in Trinidad, where he designed and supervised an agronomic research unit. Before leaving Trinidad, Campbell served as a land development officer at Tate and Lyle Sugar Corporation, where he arranged for the cultivation of 5,000 acres of sugar cane and developed alternative commercial food crops to sugar cane. Campbell moved to Wilson, North Carolina, in 1966 to serve as vice president of the Imperial Tobacco Company. During his tenure at the company, Campbell supervised research and worked to expand the selection of tobacco varieties and improve cultivation methods. He retired in 1980 but continued his research, serving as a consultant to the United Nations and the World Bank on the international tobacco market.

Campbell also worked as an educator and volunteer in various locations. He served as an adjunct professor of crop science at NC State for a number of years, where he taught courses on the production of tropical food crops. His volunteer activities included serving as chairman of the TQC Tobacco Association, director of the North Carolina Tobacco Foundation, and as chairman or member of numerous organizations in Wilson. Campbell also published widely, with more than sixty articles to his credit. His reports, however, were not limited to professional journals, as he frequently contributed to the popular press, radio, and television.

The Ralph Cummings Collection

The second significant donation of personal papers to Special Collections is the Ralph Cummings Collection. Cummings, who was born in 1911 in Reidsville, North Carolina, grew up in a farming family. After a long and varied career, he donated his papers to the library in spring 2001. He also gave his research library, which will be housed in the Libraries' general collections.

Cummings worked on his family's farm throughout his childhood before enrolling at North Carolina State College. He completed his graduate education at Ohio State University, receiving a Ph.D. in soil science. He accepted a position as assistant professor of soil science at Cornell University before returning to his home state to become head of NC State's Department of Agronomy in 1942. During his tenure, he also held positions with the Agricultural Experiment Station in North Carolina.

Cummings eventually left North Carolina to continue his research overseas. He served as chief of the North Carolina Research Mission to Peru and also as field director and principal representative in India for the Rockefeller Foundation. Cummings later returned to NCSU as administrative dean for research and finally as an adjunct professor. He held numerous other professional assignments over the years, including director of the International Rice Research Institute, director of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, and chairman of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research.

The role Cummings played in the Green Movement of the 1960s, which centered on the need to increase food production in India, brought him international recognition. He made significant contributions in the efforts to relieve world hunger and to teach students about the principles of agriculture. Cummings worked with the Ford and Rockefeller foundations to reach these goals.

North Carolina Farm Bureau Collection

The third collection of note the department received in 2001 is that of the North Carolina Farm Bureau Federation, which includes ledgers and records about North Carolina crops dating from the bureau's inception in 1936. The collection will continue to expand as the federation transfers additional materials to the NCSU Libraries on an annual basis.

Initially, the Farm Bureau had 4,490 members from thirty counties across the state. In 1953 the bureau launched its service-to-member programs by establishing the North Carolina Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company. Many other programs followed. For instance, in 1962 the North Carolina Farm Bureau Service Company started to offer tires and batteries for sale to bureau members. This program now includes many other products. The North Carolina Farm Bureau Marketing Association, incorporated in 1963, markets hogs, beef cattle, dairy products, spent hens, and apples and other fruits and vegetables. In 1965 the North Carolina Farm Bureau R. Flake Shaw Memorial Scholarship Fund was established, and in 1983 the North Carolina Farm Bureau Legal Foundation began. Another new program, the North Carolina Farm Bureau Political Action Committee, was launched in 1987. In 1991 the North Carolina Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom received its charter. Today, the North Carolina Farm Bureau Federation has more than 400,000 members.

Donating a Collection

These new collections enhance the library'ws strong collections in agriculture and entomology. Special Collections plans to continue expanding these research collections. Anyone interested in donating a manuscript collection to the NCSU Libraries should call Lois Fischer Black, manuscripts curator, at (919) 515-9059 or send an electronic-mail message to lois_black@ncsu.edu.