John Serenus Bordner was born to John Bordner and Catherine Dohmer Bordner in York Township, Elkhart County, Indiana on February 23, 1877. He attended country schools in Indiana until the age of 18. In 1904, he received an A.B. from the University of Indiana where he majored in biology. After his graduation, Bordner taught biology in the Elwood, Indiana, high school for two years. One of his students in Elwood was Wendell Willkie, the Republican presidential candidate in 1940. In 1908, Bordner received his Ph.D. in plant physiology from the University of Michigan. During his university career, Bordner became an ardent follower of the Danish philosopher Bishop Grundtvig, a leader in the folk school and cooperative movement.
After receiving his doctorate, Bordner returned to his farm home in northern Indiana where he operated a plant and animal breeding station. Between 1908 and 1913, he specialized in corn hybridization. Because of his opposition to the regimentation he found in secondary schools, Bordner started a folk school in 1908. He ran the school for two years, receiving both local and national attention.
In 1912, Bordner became the county agricultural agent for St. Joseph County, Indiana. One of the first county agents in the country, Bordner served in this capacity until 1919. One of his first projects was to conduct a land inventory of St. Joseph County. The purpose of the survey was to determine which lands were most suitable for farming and the best types of crops to grow. In 1917, he organized the first county-wide Farm Bureau Cooperative in St. Joseph County. After seven years of work as a pioneer county agent, Bordner, in 1919, moved to a 260-acre farm near Glen Flora, Rusk County, Wisconsin.
In 1924, Bordner became the director of the Land Economic Inventory Division of the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture. Bordner occupied that post for twenty years, until his automatic (at age seventy) retirement in 1947. Due to Bordner's efforts, Wisconsin achieved the most complete land inventory in the country. Under Bordner's direction, the inventory compiled statistics on land use and drew up an enormous number of land use maps indicating soil types and the crops which could be best grown on them. The maps were very complete and detailed, showing both man-made (roads) and natural (springs, beaver dams) features.
Bordner was also largely responsible for the planting of an extensive white pine forest in Bayfield County. When Bordner became the land inventory director, there were about 1,000,000 barren acres in that county. Although local citizens said nothing worthwhile could grow there, Bordner tested the land and discovered white pine roots of timber long since felled by loggers. As a result, the federal government planted 55,000 acres of pine there. By the time of his retirement, the tract was yielding timber.
Bordner was a strong advocate of cooperatives throughout his life. He was the leading sponsor and first president of the Wisconsin Cooperative Housing Association, which was incorporated in 1936. The Association, under Bordner's leadership, organized Crestwood, a cooperative housing project in Madison. The project consisted of about 50 homes, every one of which faced a park area. Bordner believed that such a rustic environment was far better for children to grow up in than the crowded conditions of many cities.
Bordner was active in many other cooperatives as well. At various times in his life he was a member and patron of the Ladysmith (Wisconsin) Milk Producers Cooperative, the Madison Oil Cooperative, the Madison Cleaners Cooperative, the Madison Consumers Cooperative Dairy, and the Insurance Cooperative Agency.
After his retirement Bordner devoted much of his time to studying the effect of sunspots and other solar phenomena on the weather and crop yields. He established the “Weather Forecasting Service” at his home in Crestwood, and in 1949 published a pamphlet entitled Sun, Energy and Weather.
Bordner married Stanta Dora Lung in June 1908. They had two children, Jean and Virginia Catherine. Bordner died in Madison on October 28, 1959 at the age of 82.
