James Dryden

James Dryden was a poultry scientist who built the poultry husbandry program at Oregon Agricultural College, now Oregon State University, into one of the most respected in the world. After working as a poultry specialist at Utah State, he took charge of Oregon Agricultural College's poultry husbandry department in 1907 and led it until 1922, demonstrating that selective breeding could substantially raise egg production in hens. Under his direction one of the college's experiment station hens, known as C-521 and later renamed Lady MacDuff, broke the world egg laying record with 303 eggs in a single year, a result that drew national newspaper attention. Dryden was inducted into the National Agricultural Hall of Fame in 1991, the only poultry scientist to receive that honor.