Beal was born in Adrian, Michigan, to William and Rachel Beal, His parents were pioneering Quaker settlers/farmers from New York state. Beal grew up in forested land surrounded by native plant and animal life. He married Hannah Proud in 1863. He retired to Amherst, Massachusetts, and died there in 1924.
After briefly serving as professor of botany at the University of Chicago in 1868-70, Beal went on to Michigan Agricultural College, where he was a professor of botany, and curator of the museum. While at MAC, he arranged for Liberty Hyde Bailey to work as an assistant to Asa Gray at Harvard University for two years during 1883-1884. He also served as director of the state Forestry Commission. He was a key leader of the experimental movement of agricultural botany at the college. His research at the MAC involved using cross fertilization to increase the yield from 8 rowed Indian corn to 24 rowed hybrid corn. His contributions planted him as “one of the pioneers in the development of hybrid corn” in the late 19th century. Using his techniques, Beal was able to produce crops that bloomed earlier, were hardier, had more vigor, and had “better qualities” than traditionally grown varieties. He began conducting these experiments in 1878. He also conducted the first turf grass experiments at the college in 1880. Beal first visited the Michigan Agricultural college in 1870. He was to teach a botany class during the summer. At that time, Lansing had a population of 1,541 residents and the addition of a new hall on campus allowed the college to accept 150 students, up from the previous 82 student accommodation. He described the college as “young, poor, and small”. Due to a lack of faculty, Beal taught a wide range of subjects. In addition to teaching his passion of botany, he also taught English, history, and civil engineering. His successor at the Michigan Agricultural College, P.G. Holden, is quoted as praising Beal’s work by saying “From his original experiment has come the Twentieth Century Miracle - hybrid corn.” Beal founded MSU's W. J. Beal Botanical Garden in 1877, making it the oldest continuously operated botanical garden in the United States. Beal's work was inspired by many influential scientists of the late 19th century. He arrived at Harvard to complete an undergraduate degree a mere 3 years after Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species. Emerson, Lowell, and Holmes were still writing and lecturing, and Thoreau was still alive. Beal heard all of them as a young student from Michigan. The groundbreaking research by Darwin and the writing of Emerson, Lowell, Holmes, and Thoreau were surely inspiration to a young Beal as he transitioned from studying at Harvard to conducting his research at the Michigan Agricultural College. Darwin’s research on inheritance especially seems to have influenced Beal’s development of hybrid corn. In 1887, he and Professor Rolla C. Carpenter created "Collegeville", the first neighborhood in what later became East Lansing.
Germination experiment
In 1879 Beal started one of the longest running experiments in botany. He filled 20 bottles with a mixture of sand and seeds, with each bottle containing 50 seeds from 21 species of plant. Then the bottles were buried, their necks pointing down to exclude water. The goal of the experiment was to unearth one of the bottles every five years, plant the seeds, and observe the number that would sprout. Later caretakers extended the experiment by opening a bottle once every decade, and later, every two decades. The most recent bottle was unearthed in 2000, and 2 of the 21 plant species sprouted. The experiment is still running, with the bottles buried on the campus of Michigan State University, and the next bottle due to be tested in spring 2020. The end of the study is due in 2100.
