We have been learning about the Coteau Farm, also well-known as the State Farm, founded west of Lynd by Oren C. and Charlotte Gregg in the late 1800s. The farm has been operated by members of the Banks family since Will and Kathryn Banks bought it from the Greggs in 1909.

O.C. Gregg pioneered winter dairying in Minnesota. His reputation as an innovative dairyman spread via speaking engagements at dairy conventions and country fairs in the early 1880s.

The University of Minnesota consulted with Gregg in 1885 to better reach Minnesota’s farmers with its agricultural education programs. He joined the teaching faculty of the University’s farmers’ institutes in 1886 and became Superintendent of the Agricultural Institutes in 1887, serving in that capacity for 20 years.

Minnesota History published an article by Professor Roy Scott in 1960 about O.C. Gregg’s career in agricultural education (citation at the column’s end). This article was a principle source for this column.

During Gregg’s tenure as Superintendent of the Farmers’ Institutes, the University of Minnesota expanded its experimental farm. The farm staff realized they needed a substation in southwest Minnesota, a prairie region whose topography and climate was different than that of the experimental farm. O.C. Gregg offered his Coteau Farm free of cost as a local experiment station beginning in 1893.

The University’s board of regents accepted Gregg’s offer and compensated him with advertising revenues from the Farmers’ Institute Annual. Each year’s Annual was a compilation of articles on Minnesota farming, edited by O.C. Gregg, which was distributed to farmers attending institutes around the state.

The University experiment farm opened its first substation at the Coteau Farm in 1894, referring to it as Southwest Experiment Station, Coteau. The University staff at the station used the farm’s fields and pastures to pursue their research areas.

The Annual Reports of the University’s Agricultural Experiment Station are a great source of information about the Southwest Experiment Station, Coteau. This annual report first reported the work at the Coteau substation in 1895. The report summarized the substation’s main areas of inquiry as exploring tillage methods for conserving soil moisture; working with pasture and meadow grasses; and prairie forestry and field management, including crop rotation methods.

The report also described a long-term forestry project at Coteau Farm. The staff planted 40 species of trees on four acres of the substation to assess them for hardiness and growth potential on the prairie.

The Annual Report of the Agricultural Experiment Station for July 1, 1897-June 30, 1898 explained that the areas of inquiry at Coteau Farm had evolved into studies of soil moisture, soil fertility, production of forage crops, and forestry protection. It also described how the substation used an electrical device developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for daily measurements of soil moisture. The substation staff tested fields with varying mulch, surface cultivation, spring and fall plowing, with and without crops to determine which treatments better preserved soil moisture and promoted soil fertility

The Annual Report for July 1898 through June 1899 explained that the substation’s soil moisture studies data showed how a crop fared better after some crops than others. Ongoing studies hoped to determine which preceding crops best prepared the soil for its successor crop.

The following year’s Annual Report for July 1899 through June 1900 reported that O.C. Gregg began implementing large-scale crop rotation practices based on earlier experiments to best prepare the soil for the following year’s crop. This provided the southwest region a practical demonstration of the substation’s experiments that drew a lot of attention and many visits from farmers.

The Annual Report from July 1900 through June 1901 included an article by Professor Samuel Green sharing the results of the Coteau substation’s forestry project. The project’s purpose was to determine tree hardiness in the upland prairie environment of the Coteau Farm and their rates of growth. At that time, farmers could benefit from planting trees as a fuel supply as well as a windbreak. Professor Green reported that Black Ash was slow-growing, but hardy. He also found Green Ash, American Basswood, Burr Oak, White Elm, and Hackberry from Minnesota stock had all done well.

Ironically, Professor Green praised English Buckthorn as “hardy in every way.” Many state, county, and municipal authorities today would doubtless agree as they wage a never-ending campaign against what is now considered an invasive species.

The Coteau Farm substation operated under University control for 10 years. By 1904, however, the University had developed its permanent substations and ended its operational agreement with Gregg. Using a private farm had limited the University’s ability to make major investments there. Additionally, the University staff working there lacked sufficient living quarters.

That decade of agricultural experimentation at O.C. Gregg’s Coteau Farm led to specific soil moisture management techniques; proven crop rotations; pasturage practices; and evidence-based forestry practices all designed and proven successful for our region. These innovations were yet another way that O.C. Gregg, the dairyman from Lyon County, had a major influence on farming in Minnesota and beyond.

Gregg retired in 1914 from teaching in other states. He and Charlotte lived in the cottage at Coteau Farm they had reserved when they sold the farm to Will and Kathryn Banks. Charlotte died in 1922, after which O.C. moved to a farm near Barnum operated by a former assistant. Lyon County’s greatest early agricultural innovator died there in 1926.

Source: Scott, R. V. (1960). Pioneering in Agricultural Education: Oren C. Gregg and Farmers’ Institutes. Minnesota History, 37(1),19-29. http://collections.mnhs.org/mnhistorymagazine/articles/37/v37i01p019-029.pdf

I welcome your participation in and ideas about our exploration of prairie lives. You may reach me at prairieview pressllc@gmail.com.