William Jasper Spillman

Spillman was born October 23, 1863, in Lawrence County, Missouri, the eleventh of fifteen children of Nathan Cosby Spilman (b.

[1] His childhood was spent on their 200-acre (0.81 km2) southwest Missouri farm among a large family burdened by the accidental death of his father on July 21, 1871.

Following three years as a teacher at Missouri State Normal School, Cape Girardeau, where he married Miss Mattie Ramsay (1865–1935) in 1889, he received his M.S.

During his brief tenure at Washington's land-grant college, Spillman established the economically important wheat breeding program that continues to this day.

It was at Pullman that, involved in experiments to hybridize wheat adapted to the growing conditions of the Palouse country, Spillman independently rediscovered Mendel's Law of Heredity.

[5] His discovery was published in a November 1901 paper titled "Quantitative Studies on the Transmission of Parental Characters to Hybrid Offspring".

Although hired as an agrostologist (or expert on grasses) Spillman's overwhelming interest in farm management coupled with the nearly free hand given to him by the department produced several bulletins, speeches and other communications directed to the farmer's needs.

In 1905 the Office of Farm Management was organized with Spillman as the head, a position he retained until 1918 when a disagreement with the Secretary of Agriculture elicited his resignation.

He retained this position until the farm slump and a subsequent loss of advertising revenue in 1921 forced the Journal to cut back its staff.

Spillman's role required visiting reservations across the country and reporting on their economic use and potential, particularly in relation to agriculture.

At his University of Missouri commencement on June 3, 1886, when he earned a bachelor of science degree, Spillman gave the Valedictory Address of Academic Classes.

[9] The Agronomy Farm at Washington State University was established in 1955 and in 1961 was named for William Jasper Spillman, WSU's first wheat breeder.