He was always anxious to turn his knowledge to practical account, whether in preparing medicines, or in furthering industrial arts such as dyeing, or in increasing the fertility of the soil by artificial manures.
Of his decorative paintings, the best known are the elegant compositions (in spirit fresco) on the walls of the Victoria and Albert Museum, representing "The Industrial Arts of War and Peace."
It has a school of the industrial arts and sciences, grows good wine, and makes bricks.
During the Protectorate they were visited by a detachment of Cromwell's troops, who initiated the inhabitants into various industrial arts and new methods of agriculture.
Among the public buildings are the state capitol, the post office building, the county court house, the city hall, the second regiment armoury, public library (containing about 42,000 volumes in 1909), and the building (1910) given by Henry C. Kelsey to the city for the school of industrial arts (founded in 1898).