Harry Purple Ogden, who would develop the possibilities of soybeans as a cash crop, was already experimenting with soil, fertilizers, forage crops, and garden plants at age 13. He graduated from UT in 1913 and taught agriculture and chemistry in Clarksville. He began UT extension work in 1915 as a county agricultural agent. He represented the Agricultural Experiment Station as assistant agronomist in 1926 in Cooperative Experiment Station programs in Murfreesboro and later became associate agronomist.
Soybeans were a relatively unimportant cash crop in Tennessee until Ogden developed its possibilities through increased yield and better adaptation to modern harvesting methods. The Ogden soybean, released by UT in 1938, was the gold standard for soybeans for many years, and Ogden also produced the Volstate bean. He was a member of Phi Kappa Phi and Alpha Zeta. He was posthumously inducted into in the Tennessee Agricultural Hall of Fame in 1974.