FIELDS, John, American agricultural writer and leader, was born at Davenport, Iowa, 29 July 1871. His early life was spent on a farm and, at the age of 16 he entered the Pennsylvania State College, from which he graduated in 1891, immediately after which he entered the service of the Pennsylvania Agri cultural Experiment Station as assistant chem ist. In 1896 he became an associate chemist of the Oklahoma Agricultural Experiment Station and, in 1899, was made chemist and director of the same institution, a position which he re tained until 1906. In 1902 he took np the work of editing the Oklahoma Farm Journal, con, tinning until 1915, when that paper was merged with the Oklahoma Farmer, since which time he had been editor of the latter. Throughout his career in Oklahoma he has been ,active ut all lines that have tended to advance the fann ing interests of the region in which he is most interested. Especially has he urged that farm,
ing methods must be adapted to local needs and conditions regardless of means and methods in common use in other parts of the world and especially has he urged the growing of the grain sorghums (i.e., kafir-corn, milo-maize, feterita, etc.), instead of Indian corn in the subhumid region along the eastern border of the Great Plains, where the drouth resistant
of the grain sorghums are such as to render their successful culture much more cer tain than that of Indian corn, and basing his arguments upon the known facts that lave been demonstrated as the result of long experience and experimentation. In 1914 he was the Re tiablican' nominee for governor of Oklahoma and was defeated by a small plurality, though his party was in a hopeless minority. He is the author of a book entitled