Baker co-authored a bulletin for the Experiment Station, which studied the climate of Wisconsin and its effects on agriculture, published in 1912.
One of his first works, co-authoring Geography of the World's Agriculture (1917) with Vernor Clifford Finch, led him to even wider recognition.
Shortly after its publication, Baker returned to the University of Wisconsin–Madison for further graduate study, in economics, and earned his Ph.D. in 1921 with a dissertation on land utilization.
While there, Baker had been influenced by Henry Charles Taylor and Richard T. Ely, two notable economists, to shift his work more toward the economic aspect of geography and agriculture.
He hoped to achieve this by raising the level of appreciation for farmers and their contributions within the United States, and studying recent trends to aid in planning and forecasting potential problems.
He also tried to encourage Americans to have larger families in order to ensure successful future generations in the country.
[1] In 1931 he was elected president of the Association of American Geographers, and received honorary doctorates from Heidelberg College in Ohio and the University of Göttingen in Germany.
[3] Baker left Washington D.C. for the University of Maryland, College Park in 1942, accepting an invitation to establish a Department of Geography there.
[2] Having suffered from health problems his entire life,[1] he died in his home in College Park, Maryland.