Jack Harlan was clearly inspired by the long discussions between his father Harry Harlan and N.I. Vavilov, an occasional guest of the Harlan household. Jack had hoped to study with Vavilov after getting his BSc degree from George Washington University in 1938. He even studied Russian along with other languages during his school days. His hopes were dashed, however, because of the difficult times Vavilov encountered during the latter years of his career.
As recalled by Calvin Qualset (an equally distinguished breeder) “Jack reported in The Living Fields (1995), his last book, the following exchange between his father and Vavilov:
Harry Harlan was in regular correspondence with Vavilov. If Vavilov began his letter with “My dear Dr. Harlan …” there was something wrong at Vavilov’s institute in Russia. If he responded with “Dear Dr. Harlan …”, things were more or less normal. So when Harry Harlan wrote to Vavilov about young Jack studying in Leningrad the reply came immediately “My Dear Dr. Harlan, what you said about Chinese barley is very interesting … .”
Since Harry Harlan had said nothing about Chinese barley, it was an indication that things were not going well for Vavilov and hence Jack would not be going to Russia after all. Instead, he went to the University of California at Berkeley and was the first graduate student to receive the Ph.D. with the great botanist and evolutionist G. Ledyard Stebbins.
