(gentle violin and piano music)
- This small spot of land
in Southern Minnesota
has always been seen as the crown jewel
of the great Midwest.
Its communities have held many
titles, Athens of the West,
Holstein Capital of America.
It was even under consideration
to hold the capital
when Minnesota joined the
Union as its 32nd state.
Its influence was known nationwide.
Its schools renowned,
it's businesses, iconic.
But one of its greatest claims to fame
is the one we're here to talk about today.
I'm Sam Temple.
- I'm Logan Ledman.
Agriculture has been
central to the development
of not only Rice County, but
our state and our country.
Today, you'll join us on a journey
through the centuries of
agricultural innovations
and dangers that mark the
history of Rice County.
- For as long as there
have been American farms,
there have been American farmers.
In the case of Rice County,
we began with Native American farmers.
Though they were a
primarily nomadic people,
the Dakota of the area would stake out
and return to pieces of
land where they would yield
their own annual crops.
The familiar characters of corn,
squash, and beans were present,
as were the customary
medicines found in the land.
On the sky-tinted waters
of Minnesota's lakes,
they gathered wild rice.
- The land of sky-tinted
waters is a translation
of the original Dakota, Mni Sota,
that's where we get Minnesota.
Their wild rice, however, was not where
we got the name for our county.
Rice was the name of an
early political leader,
Henry M. Rice, who was first shown around
our neck of the woods by
one Alexander Faribault.
Alex set up his first
camp in the area in 1826.
Being part Dakota and part white,
he was a successful fur trader
and a sort of peacekeeper
for the early conflicts
between settlers and Native Americans.
One of the first things Alex had to do
when he made a permanent home
in the area, was start a farm.
- Alex, and pretty much
every early settler,
had small subsistence farms,
fenced in to keep animals
out of the vegetation
they needed to survive.
Free range was the law of the land
and respected by everyone around.
The only animal you'd
tie up during the day
would be horses, and that
was only to keep them away
from the preying clutches
of horse thieves.
- Really, horse thieves?
That was a big problem?
- Oh, without equestrian.
- Okay, well I'm really
champing at the bit
to move on from this.
- Okay, I'll saddle down.
- If it behooves you.
- This is a good bit.
- Well, let's not beat a dead horse.
Alexander Faribault was the first
long-term settler in the area.
Eventually Peter Bush arrived
to do some blacksmithing,
and Luke Hullett, the first individual
we'd truly consider a farmer,
made this a real settlement.
According to an 1882
History of Rice County,
Faribault, Bush, and
Hullett should be seen
as the true founding
fathers of Rice County.
- One business that has
been present in Rice County
for as long as there have been farmers,
is horticulture, or nurseries.
These places breed the
seeds that farmers plant,
aiming to make them as productive
and lucrative as possible.
The earliest crop these nurseries
would be providing for
Rice County, was wheat.
For the first 20-some years of settlement,
we were part of the Wheat Belt,
a chain of communities whose dominant
agricultural export was,
you guessed it, wheat.
- So, after Luke Hullett and Peter Bush
and Alexander Faribault, who
is coming to farm the land?
Well, there were three big methods
of getting land to cultivate.
One, you could buy it from folks
like good ol' Alex Faribault.
Two, you could homestead
it thanks to Honest Abe
and the Homestead Act.
Three, you could receive a land warrant
after military service.
Since the War of 1812, the
government had paid soldiers
with land in lieu of actual cash,
and that's how many
Mexican and Civil War vets
found themselves in Rice
County after their service.
- When they found themselves here,
life obviously wasn't very easy.
Challenges were abundant,
both physical and economic.
Here's a quote from F. W.
Frink, an early settler,
describing the 1858 recession
and financial crisis:
"Agricultural interest was also thriving
"until the year 1858,
when occurred the nearest
"to a failure of crops that Rice County
"has ever experienced.
"The prospect was gloomy,
and many families anticipated
"actual want before the
coming of another harvest.
"Relief came from a
quarter as was the manna
"in the wilderness by the Israelites.
"By somebody, the happy discovery was made
"that our timbered lands
were full of ginseng
"and forthwith our
population was transferred
"into a community of diggers
"and many a man, and even a woman too,
"who had never earned more
than a dollar a day before,
"received from two to four dollars
"for their days labor in the woods.
"Thus was Rice County's
darkest hour tided over
"and from that day to this
there has never been a time
"when its citizens have had reason
"to fear for a lack of
the necessaries of life."
(deep sigh) Now, that was
before the Great Depression,
so Rice County's darkest
hour might be contentious,
but Frink, wherever he's
from, does bring up ginseng.
Ginseng is a root found in the area,
highly desired by Asian markets.
This shows that even when
their own crops failed,
Rice County settlers
could rely on the land
and a little hard labor to get them by.
(melodic orchestral music)
- The Civil War broke out in 1861.
This war was, in many ways,
intrinsically linked to agriculture.
After all, it was a war about slave labor
predominantly found on
southern farms and plantations.
Minnesota had little to no reliance
on slave labor in our fields,
so we were able to provide for
the defenders of our Union.
Grain was mainly shipped to the boys
fighting down south,
instead of to the many mills
that had sprouted up locally.
The demand for pork greatly increased.
When it's salted, it takes longer to spoil
so it can be stored for
greater periods of time.
It was a trying era for
the American family,
and the American family farm.
But Minnesota, and Rice
County, only came out stronger
from it on the other end.
- The end of the Civil also marked
the end of free range rule.
As more and more people
came to stake their land,
free range was simply no longer viable,
at least how they did it back then.
It was around this time, in the 1860s,
that a great innovation changed the way
we farmed in Rice County.
Steam power increased
productivity and capacity
for harvest like never before.
Blacksmiths and foundries toiled away
at improving plow and
grain binder technologies.
As the yield of wheat went up,
so did the amount of buyers
looking to nab the best crop.
Rice County farmers didn't only
have some dozen local mills
to sell to, but larger
ones from big port towns
like Hastings, were eager to buy.
Faribault's own Walcott Mills bought wheat
left and right and were
eventually able to distribute
their final product through another great
technological progression,
the cross-country railroads.
- Sadly, the reign of the Wheat Belt
came to an end in about 1875.
Unfortunately, many farmers
didn't diversify their crops
and after two decades of wheat
the soil was relatively shot.
That's when Rice County once again showed
its ginseng-esque
adaptability and forged ahead
through the challenge.
They surmounted the morphing
market by turning to livestock.
In the 1880s bigger,
stronger breeds of horses
made their way to the area
and came to be bred in Rice County.
They were a valuable international export.
The more lucrative livestock
animal of choice, however,
was the creature of our
colleges and contentment, cows!
- Ah, the bovine of beauty.
- They are utterly stunning.
- I always hope to spot them.
- They really dangle my bell.
- Okay, we're milking it.
- Moo-ving on.
- Steering us right back on track,
cows really were a big deal
to farmers in Rice County.
In the 1890s, it's estimated
there was a creamery every five miles.
Butter was mainly produced
by country creameries,
milk by town creameries,
and cheese by, caves.
The prosperity of pasteurized
products allowed farmers
to pay off their
mortgages, and eventually,
invest in new technologies introduced
by the oncoming century.
- With the turn of the
century came a transformation
of the very fabric of daily life.
The increasing role of
gasoline and electricity
increased productivity in a major way.
With gasoline came tractors.
With tractors, the amount
of work a single farmer
could accomplish was magnified greatly.
As these technological
breakthroughs slowly spread,
agriculture was changed forever.
The changing world of
farming, from hand labor,
to horse-drawn plows, to machines,
had entered the modern era.
- Nice Sam.
- That was great!
- It took a good while for electricity
to make its way to the country,
with many places taking
until the '30s or even later.
But, electricity was barely
enough to help farmers
survive the effects of
the Great Depression
and the Dust Bowl.
Government took an increased
role in regulating agriculture
as the nation reeled from economic ruin.
When World War II broke out,
America was transformed into
a productive powerhouse,
and the power of the country's agriculture
was turned back on.
- Now, throughout the
'30s and into the '40s,
a grand innovation
sprouted in the corn field.
By the 1940s, hybrid breeds of corn
increased yields during and
after the wartime years,
making corn the staple
crop it remains today.
This scientific advancement
reflects the change
that had largely taken
place by the end of the war.
As the country cooled
down from the intensity
of the War period, the work
of farmers in Rice County
was largely done mechanically.
Almost all work that once was done by hand
could be performed by gasoline
or electricity-powered machines.
- An explosion of agricultural innovation
took place in this period.
The growth of soybean
farming in the late '50s
provided protein for the
many cows being bred.
In the '60s, the Green Revolution began.
The widespread use of chemicals,
such as insecticides and herbicides,
agro-chemicals and chemical fertilizers,
made large-scale farming possible.
- Today, that revolution continues.
There are way too many
examples to discuss right now,
but the newfound power of scientists
to travel directly into the
genetic material of crops,
and the development of hydroponics,
both show how the world of
agriculture continues to change,
and with these developments
have come an increase
in jobs reliant on agricultural science.
From satellite farming
to self-driving tractors,
someone needs to be able
to repair, run, and program
the new technology
coming to American farms.
- [Sam] When you think of that
farm Alex Faribault started
more than 150 years ago,
and consider everything
that would come after, the
destruction and growth of wars,
the spread of extraordinary technology,
the continued resilience and adaptation
of Rice County farmers,
it's clear that Rice County
is linked inextricably to
its agricultural beginnings.
Faribault, Bush, and
Hullett, couldn't have known
what their legacy would be.
Within their county, farms
run by families flourished.
Whether it was the Scandinavian immigrants
clearing their plot of woodland,
or a Civil War veteran
starting his life anew,
farms brought life to the community,
they rose life from the dirt.
This is the legacy of
our founding fathers.
This is the legacy of
the Rice County Farmer.
