Harold DeMott Hughes was born in Antioch, Illinois, on January 16, 1882. He received his B.S. (1907) at the University of Illinois and his M.S. at the University of Missouri (1908). He served at the University of Missouri as an instructor of farm crops from 1908-1910. In 1910, he came to Iowa State College as a professor and chief of the Experiment Farm Crops Station and served on the faculty there until 1947.

Professor Hughes was active in research studies on all major crops. His emphasis was on forage crops and pasture management. He was one of the initiators of the state corn yield test in 1920 and served as its chairman. He also presided over committees on Seed Certification of Corn.

Professor Hughes served as president of the American Society of Agronomy in 1946, and vice-president in 1944. He was also elected as president of the Association of Seed Analysts in 1917. He was a member of four honor Societies including Alpha Zeta, Gamma Sigma Delta, Sigma Xi, and Phi Kappa Phi.

Much of Professor Hughes' work was presented in a number of publications in research journals and bulletins. He was joint author of a widely used textbook entitled Crop Production. In 1947, Professor Hughes relinquished his fulltime duties as head of the Agronomy department at Iowa State University, but his interest and activities in agriculture continued until his death on November 2, 1969.

This collection (1916-1971) is comprised of biographical materials, correspondence, newspaper clippings, published works, writings, radio talks, and photographs. The biographical materials include essays, tributes, speech manuscripts, ISU personnel information, and press releases. The correspondence concerns crop research being conducted at other universities' experiment stations and seed farms.

Published works in the papers are by Hughes and some of his colleagues. They are arranged in chronological order and document Hughes' research interests (see container list for specific titles). Hughes' unpublished writings are in alphabetical order by title. The WOI Radio talks are arranged chronologically. All these writings, published, unpublished, and the radio talk scripts focus on teaching agronomy and changes in major agricultural crop research. The talks also deal with Mexican agriculture, Henry Wallace, hybrid corn, and Iowa history.

The student work in the Hughes papers pertain to two thesis projects under Hughes' direction. Background materials, such as articles, pamphlets, studies, and reports document developments with birdsfoot trefoil. The last category, photographs, is arranged alphabetically by topic. They include images of clover, corn, equipment, maps of U.S. and world food production, pasture improvement and preparation, people and groups (see container list), reed canary grass, and miscellaneous photos.

This collection is listed alphabetically.