Agriculture | Page 13

Fillmore County Poor Farm

Fillmore County Poor Farm, ca. 1900. Used with the permission of Debra J. Richardson.

The Fillmore County Poor Farm, outside the small village of Henrytown, was part of a statewide initiative in the late 1800s to provide housing for poor and elderly people. At its start in 1868 it was considered one of the best of Minnesota’s county poor farms, but it eventually fell victim to a lack of funds and resources.

Tea plantation organized by William Gates LeDuc

Tea plantation organized by William Gates LeDuc near Charleston, South Carolina, ca.1905. From the William LeDuc and family papers (a manuscripts collection) at the Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul.

Agricultural fair poster

Poster advertising a late-twentieth-century reenactment of a nineteenth-century agricultural fair, undated. The Great Western Band often performed at such events between the 1860s and 1900. From the poster collection of the Minnesota Historical Society.

Corn Production in Minnesota, 1866–2016

The story of the transformation of Minnesota’s landscape from the earliest European immigration to the twenty-first century is a story about corn. The change in production and yield of corn is a study of the impact of applied science and technology. Although the yearly increments of change in production practices and yield were small, their aggregate impact was astounding. They can be broken into three major phases: mechanical, chemical, and biological.