Chester Roistacher

My Life in Agriculture Chester Roistacher

The first momentous critical event in my life was my bout with Poliomyelitis at 4 years of age. I had been totally crippled but had fully recovered. The second critical event in my life is my belief that had I not been discharged from the U. S. Navy because of my ulcers, I probably would not have survived the war. Many shipmates in my quartermaster class, where we were trained to steer landing craft onto invasion beaches, did not survive. The third critical event in my life was the momentous decision to leave New York City and my career in engineering and enter a new career in agriculture. I spent a year at the National Farm School in Bucks County Pennsylvania and was trained in various tasks from milking cows, driving tractors, harvesting various crops combined with intense studies related to farming and agriculture. The fourth critical event in my life was when I was being interviewed by the registrar for entrance to Cornell University and was refuse admission because I was not raised on a farm but was a city raised boy. However, after much arduous discussion the Registrar softened and said he would give me a test(Feeling certain I would fail). He then showed me a chart containing many different kinds of seeds and asked if I could identify the various crop and weed seeds . However, because I had collected seeds at Farm School and had constructed a similar seed chart, I was able to identify nearly all of the seeds. He said that I was accepted into Cornell University. The fifth critical event in my life involved a colorful leaf of a disease of grapes . Because of inquiries about this leaf, I met Dr. Kenneth Baker who was on Sabbatical at Cornell and who, after we developed a friendship, invited me to work for him in the Department of Plant Pathology at UCLA. Thus began my career in Agriculture