Meade Ferguson (17 March 1869–6 August 1942), bacteriologist, was born in Appomattox County and was the son of Henry Clay Ferguson, a farmer, and Frances Goin Ferguson. Involved with agriculture since his youth, Ferguson at age seventeen was secretary and manager of cooperative buying and selling for the Appomattox County Farmers Alliance. He received a B.S. from Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College and Polytechnic Institute (later Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) in 1896 and an M.S. with highest distinction from the same institution in 1899. Later that year he traveled to Germany and in 1902 earned a Ph.D. from the University of Göttingen with a dissertation on the organisms involved in the decomposition of milk at high temperatures.
Ferguson returned to VPI as an assistant professor of agriculture, later advancing to a full professorship in bacteriology and mycology. In 1904, in addition to his teaching duties, he joined the staff of the Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station as bacteriologist and began research in soil bacteriology and inoculation. The following year Ferguson directed a program in which the Agricultural Experiment Station offered alfalfa bacteria, an inoculating material, to every farmer in Virginia for a nominal fee. An important forage crop, alfalfa was short-lived in many parts of the state and Ferguson's research increased its successful cultivation. He also stressed the importance of seed selection and believed that farmers should monitor yield and quality to select the best seed from their own crops and thereby take advantage of specific environmental conditions. He urged farmers to conduct individual experiments on new plant varieties because farms located only a few miles apart might yield different results.
In 1908 Ferguson left VPI to become the bacteriologist for the newly established Virginia Department of Health. As director of the laboratory he helped diagnose and prevent outbreaks of diseases such as typhoid fever, diphtheria, tuberculosis, and malaria; performed chemical and bacteriological examinations on water specimens from every part of the state; and helped carry out tests to determine the effect of water pollution on Virginia oyster beds. The laboratory also tracked rabies cases and in 1910 Ferguson advocated the licensing of dogs to eliminate the disease. Working singlehandedly in cramped conditions, Ferguson provided thousands of free laboratory diagnoses annually for physicians across Virginia, especially those in rural areas. With James Obediah Fitzgerald, one of his colleagues, Ferguson received patents in 1913 from the United States and Canada for a flashlight attachment for revolvers.
He resigned in 1914 and began editing the Southern Planter, a monthly periodical devoted to agricultural interests. Published in Richmond, the Planter became a semi-monthly in 1919. Ferguson remained editor until 1927, and by the following year was the bacteriologist for the new biochemical laboratory of the Department of Agriculture and Immigration of Virginia. During his fourteen years at the laboratory he oversaw testing of blood samples from cows to detect brucellosis (also known as Bang's infectious abortion disease) and from poultry for pollurum disease, ailments that could be devastating for Virginia farmers.
A founding member of the reorganized Virginia State Grange in 1928, Ferguson served as its grand master from 1932 to 1936 and again from 1940 to 1942. He edited the Virginia Grange News from its first issue in 1934 until 1938. In 1935 the monthly broadened its scope and changed its name to the Virginia Farmer. Ferguson was a member of the Agricultural Conference Board, a federation of Virginia's agricultural organizations that was established in 1929 to promote state legislation favorable to farmers. In 1935 he sat on a state advisory committee charged with aiding the work of the Federal Housing Administration in improving housing and living conditions on Virginia farms. He addressed public letters to the agricultural committees of the United States Congress in 1937, urging passage of legislation to control crop production and prices through quotas based on domestic consumption and fair prices. Ferguson opposed efforts to unionize the nation's dairy farmers and became a state director of the Interstate Farmers' Council when it organized to protect the individual rights of farmers during the summer of 1942.
Ferguson married Margaret L. Robinson on 26 August 1905 in Montgomery County. They had two daughters before her death on 18 August 1914. In Washington, D.C., he married Eldona Oliver on 7 December 1928. They did not have any children. Suffering from prostate cancer, Meade Ferguson died at his Richmond home on 6 August 1942, and was buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery, in Henrico County.
Sources Consulted:
Biography in National Cyclopędia of American Biography (1891–1984), 31:515–516 (with portrait on 515); self-reported birth date in passport application, 11 May 1899, General Records of the Department of State, Record Group 59, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.; Birth Register, Appomattox Co., and Marriage Register, Montgomery Co. (1905), Bureau of Vital Statistics, Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Health, Record Group 36, Library of Virginia; second marriage in Richmond Times-Dispatch, 10 Dec. 1928; publications include Andrew M. Soule and Ferguson, "The Inoculation and Cultivation of Alfalfa," Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 13 (Apr. 1905): 81–117, Ferguson, "Soil Inoculation with Artificial Cultures," ibid., 14 (Jan. 1906): 83–96, and Allen W. Freeman and Ferguson, "Special Report on the Sanitary Aspects of the Virginia Oyster Industry," Virginia Health Bulletin 1 (1909): 307–328; Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office 197 (1913): 1208; Canadian Patent Office Record 42 (1914): 14–15; Richmond News Leader, 14 Dec. 1937; Harold N. Young, The Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station, 1886–1966 (1975), 89; obituaries in Richmond News Leader, 6 Aug. 1942, New York Times, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Washington Post, all 7 Aug. 1942, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute Techgram, 15 Aug. 1942; editorial tribute in Richmond News Leader, 7 Aug. 1942.
Written for the Dictionary of Virginia Biography by Deanna M. Chavez.
How to cite this page:
Deanna M. Chavez,"Meade Ferguson (1869–1942)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2016, revised 2018 (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Ferguson_Meade, accessed [today's date]).
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