Carver recalled, “Shortly after I came to Tuskegee Institute, I was going along the woods one day with my botany can under my arm. I was looking for plant diseases and for insect enemies. A lady saw what she probably thought was a harmless old colored man with a strange looking box under his arm. She stopped me and asked if I was a peddler. I told her what I was doing. She seemed delighted, and asked me to come and see her roses, which were badly diseased. I showed her just what to do for them—in fact, sat down and wrote it out for her. In this and several other ways, it became noised abroad that there was a man at the school who knew about plants. People began calling on me for information and advice.”

Chapter 6 sample