Agriculture | Page 27

Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson, biologist, conservationist, and writer, ca. 1930s.

Grasshoppers waiting for the temperature to rise

Grasshoppers waiting for the temperature to rise before moving into a corn field in Marshall, Minnesota, ca. 1930s.

Flour-moth-infested mill

Portion of a wall of a poorly kept flour mill with accumulations of flour webbed by a flour moth. U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1913.

Otto Lugger

Otto Lugger, University of Minnesota professor, author, and State Entomologist, ca. 1895.

Rocky Mountain Locust oviposition (egg-laying process)

An illustration of an adult female locust placing her eggs in soil, 1877.

Black and white photograph of Entomology professor Henry C. Chiang (left) inspecting corn stalks for signs of corn borers with F. G. Holdaway and Jeanne Marie Hellberg, 1951.

Inspecting corn stalks for signs of corn borers at the University of Minnesota

Entomology professor Henry C. Chiang (left) inspects corn stalks for signs of corn borers with F. G. Holdaway and Jeanne Marie Hellberg, 1951. Image courtesy of the University of Minnesota Archives, University of Minnesota—Twin Cities.

Pest Management in Minnesota Agriculture

Insect pests have harmed harvests in Minnesota country since European immigrants first arrived in the area. Most local farmers, however, did not actively manage pests. Instead, they planned for the risk of losing some of their crop. It took both huge losses from the late 1800s grasshopper plagues and the industrialization of agriculture for Minnesota’s government to invest in pest management methods.

Black and white photograph of the Meeker County farm of the Charles Ness family, 1947.

Charles Ness family farm, Meeker County

The Meeker County farm of the Charles Ness family, 1947. As one of just two R.E.A. electric demonstration farms in the U.S., the Ness farm hosted 34,000 visitors from thirty-two states and six foreign countries interested in learning about the benefits of electricity.