Raymond Brown Becker Papers

Raymond Brown Becker served as Professor of Dairy Husbandry and Dairy Husbandmen at the Florida Agricultural Experiment Stations from 1929 to 1963. This collection of his correspondence, papers, and research notes provides excellent documentation of the University's dairy science program from its expansion in the late 1920s to its full development in the 1960s. The collection also reveals the close working relationship between the Agricultural Experiment Station and the state's dairy industry.

Dr. Becker was born December 18, 1892 in Clermont, Iowa, and received his B.S. in Agriculture from Iowa State College in 1916. He was employed by Edgemoor Farms of California until he entered the army during World War I. A near fatal concussion and exposure to phosgene gas during the war forced him to pursue a less strenuous career. He returned to Iowa State College and received his M.S. in 1920 and served briefly as an instructor at Kansas State University. In 1923 he accepted an instructorship at the University of Minnesota and entered graduate school there. He received his Ph. D. in 1925 under the tutorage of Dr. Charles H. Eckles. At Minnesota he studied problems related to soil mineral deficiency and its effect on cattle.

After three years of teaching and research assignments at Oklahoma A and M, Dr. Becker moved to the fledgling dairy science program at the University of Florida's in 1929. (In one of his record books, in a folder marked Various Projects, 1928-1944, Dr. Becker described the archaic conditions of the dairy on his first visit here in 1928.) In his earliest years at Florida he was involved in research related to a mineral deficiency in cattle known as "salt sick" and was instrumental in finding a cure.

In later years, Dr. Becker was influential in the promotion of citrus pulp as cattle feed. He also did extensive experimentation with silage as a replacement for forage and studied calcium and phosphorus deficiencies in Florida cattle. Dr. Becker wrote or co-authored nearly 180 titles for the station's bulletins, as well as for scholarly journals and popular diary magazines. Dr. Becker also published two books, one a biography of John Gorrie and the other a life-long project entitled Dairy Cattle Breeds: Origins and Development. Dr. Becker died in 1989 at the age of 96.