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Show Proposed National Agricultural Museum Would Tell Story of the Men Who Have Contributed So Much to Greatness of America: Her Farmers i , t ' , ,v Vv i v,v, ; !" -i A Is2: 5 r VllJ 1.,,,,, , , J I 1 i V 1 . ' I' 1 I- I I ! i x" 1 I H C Tf I r 1 v4l '" .,- v'J TRIBUTE TO THE "FOUNDER OF MODERN AMERICAN AGRICULTURE" AGRI-CULTURE" Members of the National Agricultural Jefferson Bicentenary Bicente-nary committee meeting in the rotunda of the University of Virginia. In the background is a statue of Thomas Jefferson, founder of the university. uni-versity. Seated directly behind the speaker at the microphone is Herbert A. Kellar, director of the McCormick Historical association, who outlined out-lined the plans for a national agricultural museum. - . By ELMO SCOTT WATSON Released by Western Newspaper Union. SOME day the United States may have a national museum, mu-seum, the purpose of which will be to tell the story of those Americans who, since this nation was founded, have contributed so much to its prosperity and to its standing as the greatest nation on earth. Those Americans are our farmers. When that museum is built and put into operation, it will not be a place of static exhibits, ex-hibits, a storehouse of ancient relics in glass cases with written writ-ten or printed labels to explain ex-plain their meaning. Instead, it will be a "living museum" which presents graphically not only the history of agriculture's agri-culture's past but also the story of its present and its promise for the future. The establishment of such a museum was forecast recently recent-ly when the National Agricultural Agricul-tural Jefferson Bicentenary committee made a pilgrimage pilgrim-age to Charlottesville, Va., there to visit the University of Virginia and Monticello and pay tribute to the man whom Claude R. Wickard, secretary of agriculture and chairman of the committee, characterized as the "Founder "Found-er of Modern American Agriculture" Agri-culture" Thomas Jefferson. Another speaker on this occasion occa-sion and the man who made the proposal for a national agricultural museum was Herbert A. Kellar, director of the McCormick Historical association as-sociation in Chicago. Speaking Speak-ing on the subject of "Living Agricultural Museums," he said in part: Let us consider for a moment what should be the character of a National Agricultural museum. It should probably be located in Washington, Wash-ington, or other appropriate place In the United States, housed in one or more large buildings, and surrounded sur-rounded with appropriate landscaping. landscap-ing. Here, outdoors and under glass, should be shown in cultivation cultiva-tion representative trees, shrubs, fruits, plants, flowers, and other places. The relation of agriculture to geology, geography, climate and soils, entomology, biology, chemistry chemis-try and engineering also merit adequate attention. The National Agricultural museum mu-seum should serve as the headquarters headquar-ters of important national farm organizations or-ganizations and provide appropriate quarters for this purpose. This would add prestige to the institution. An essential feature of the museum mu-seum would be to establish close relations with educational institutions institu-tions and organizations. On its part the museum should offer general and special courses in the form of lectures, seminars and laboratory research pertaining to various phases of the history of agriculture agricul-ture and of technology in this and other countries. These courses should be open to the public, and qualified students should be permitted per-mitted to take them for educational credits. In addition, the museum should provide internships for individuals indi-viduals desiring to specialize in the history -of agriculture and " technology tech-nology or to learn agricultural museum technique. In reciprocity, educational .agencies should invite members of the museum staff to where the Dalrymples were located and have information about them. The lumber camps of the same period pe-riod in Michigan and Wisconsin no longer exist, yet we have voluminous volu-minous records of particular companies com-panies and a few tracts of virgin timber are still standing. It would still be possible to acquire wheat land and timber, and to reestablish and operate a bonanza wheat farm or an old-time lumber camp. There are a number of well-known well-known tobacco, cotton, rice and sugar cane plantations in the South, and cattle ranches, dairies and stock farms in the Middle West and West where original ownership of land has passed and original agricultural activities are now changed. Some of these could be acquired and reestablished reestab-lished to operate as formerly. In other instances the ownership has changed, but the original land-holdings land-holdings have been held together and still produce agricultural crops, though not always the same as before. be-fore. Westover and Curies Neck and Claremont on the lower James are plantations of this type; Again, there are a surprising number of ' famous holdings which even today are owned by the same families which were in possession a hundred or more years ago. Shirley, the Carter estate on James river; Folly, the Cochran plantation in Augusta county; Walnut Grove, the McCormick McCor-mick farm in Rockbridge county; and Berry Hill, the Bruce plantation planta-tion near Halifax, all of which are located in Virginia, meet this pattern. pat-tern. The same is true of the Middle-ton Middle-ton estate on the Cooper river, and Hampton Hall, the Rutledge plantation planta-tion on the Santee river, both in South Carolina. In Louisiana, Rose-down, Rose-down, the Bowman family estate and the Cottage, long-time residence resi-dence of the Butlers, should be added. The list could be considerably con-siderably enlarged. In other cases such as Mount Vernon, Washington's Washing-ton's estate, Stratford, the Lee plantation, plan-tation, Monticello, the residence of Jefferson, and the Hermitage, home of Andrew Jackson, memorial associations asso-ciations operate these places as museums, mu-seums, with major attention given to the main dwellings. The national na-tional park service operates Wakefield, Wake-field, the Washington house, and Arlington, Ar-lington, the Lee residence, as well as other well-known places. In keeping with the establishment establish-ment of branch agricultural museums mu-seums in various parts of the United States it would be appropriate to set up a Jefferson Agricultural Memorial Memo-rial association which might operate oper-ate in connection with the Thomas Jefferson Memorial foundation at Monticello, Shadwell, Poplar Forest or other places directly, associated with Jefferson. On one or more of these original Jefferson plantations two types of activities might be on display. One would be to carry out and reproduce the agricultural experiments recorded by Jefferson in his Garden Book and his Farm Book, including his development and trial of the moldboard plow. A second sec-ond would be to relate these early enterprises to the latest and most advanced agricultural experiments of the present day. Set up side by side on the same plantation they would provide striking contrast between be-tween the early time and today and would indicate the evolution of I agriculture in the United States. vegetation of the United States. The outer walls of the buildings should present bas reliefs showing the evolution of agriculture in this country coun-try from the primitive Indian culture cul-ture of the time of first settlement to the mechanized farming of the present day. On the inner walls should be placed large murals depicting de-picting famous agricultural events and scenes. Thus, might be found Eli Whitney experimenting with his cotton gin, Elkanah Watson holding the first agricultural fair, Cyrus Hall McCormick trying out his first reaper, or Lincoln signing the act creating the land-grant colleges. Of equal interest would be the portrayal por-trayal of different types of agricultural agricul-tural operations, such as the pro-'duction pro-'duction of wheat, corn, tobacco, cotton, cot-ton, sugar cane, rice and other field crops, the cultivation of fruits and Bowers, and the raising of cattle and livestock. In addition to murals there should be a gallery of paintings of agricultural leaders, lead-ers, representing all types of activity. A theater should likewise be provided where lectures, music, plays, ballets and movihg pictures of agricultural interest might be presented. Dioramas and Operating Models. The evolution of agricultural machinery, rural architecture, electrification elec-trification in farm regions, transportation, transpor-tation, milling, tanning, meat-packing, and other types of processing should receive separate attention in appropriate exhibits, including the use of dioramas, operating models and full-sized originals. The museum mu-seum should develop a special library, li-brary, include provision for publishing publish-ing magazines, bulletins and books, house and operate a radio station, maintain close relations with the agricultural press, cooperate with the land-grant colleges, and possess a microfilm and photostat laboratory labora-tory for reproducing copies of literature litera-ture about the museum, as well as pictures of its exhibits. An important part of the museum should be the exhibits devoted to the social aspect of agricultural development. de-velopment. The life of the rural people should be fully portrayed for each era and for all classes and lecture and to give courses to the students of the institutions and to arrange for regular visits of students stu-dents to the museum for the purpose pur-pose of information and instruction. instruc-tion. In all the activities of the museum its facilities should be developed de-veloped to promote a better understanding under-standing of democracy, as illustrated illus-trated in our agricultural development. develop-ment. These and like activities fully carried out would undoubtedly justify justi-fy the designation of the National Agricultural museum as a Living Agricultural museum. Establish Branch Museums. In addition to a National Agricultural Agricul-tural museum located in Washington, Wash-ington, there should be associated with it branch museums situated in different parts of the United States. These would be of such character as to merit the designation, Living Agricultural museums, to an even greater degree than the national institution. in-stitution. These branch museums should take advantage of the existence in numerous places in this country of notable sites of representative agricultural activities which flourished flour-ished in a former day and for a considerable period. Where possible pos-sible such activities should be recreated re-created at the original locations. Among those which come to mind are the production of wheat, corn, tobacco, cotton, rice, sugar cane, indigo, hemp, fla, vegetables, fruits, flowers, cattle and livestock, dairying, stock farming, maple sugar, sug-ar, turpentine and lumbering. As far as practical in each instance operations op-erations should be shown for several sev-eral periods such as the colonial, post-revolutionary, ante-bellum, Civil Civ-il war, reconstruction and early 20th century. Likewise, wherever earlier periods are shown, some attention should be "given to present day operations to show contrast and evolution. evo-lution. Collections of physical objects, ob-jects, such as implements and machines, should also be assembled where pertinent to the particular activity. The bonanza wheat farming of the Dakotas from the '70s to the '90s has long vanished yet we know |
