The Effect of Landscape on Economy

When you reach the Cannon, which here runs north, you will find yourself in one of the loveliest of countries, an embryo of Eden ... The soil in the adjacent country is of excellent quality; choice sites for farmers are numerous, and upon the streams there are plenty of mill sites.  It is a charming and picturesque region, where the hunter and angler may find plenty of sport ... In fact, the most part of the country, so far as my knowledge extends, was made expressly for stirring enterprising farmers to grow rich upon.
                                                                    -Report from settlers (Carlin 1976, p.6)

Rice County's land was perceived to be an area which offered abundant resources, perfectly suited for agricultural production.  Its soils, waterways, forests, and grasslands provided a rich resource base for entrepreneurial frontiersmen in the period of western expansion.  Multiple settlers recounted the excellent fitness of the land for agriculture.  EJ Doolittle wrote, "I know you like the country we do not have to dig stone nor cast manure to raise crops it does not cost any thing to pasture cattle here you can cut hay where you please to winter them on but it will not be any longer than people get their/land/fenced" (Letter from EJ Doolittle to Jason Allen, Vernon, Vt. September 26, 1857 in Carlin 1976, p.42). To read more of these accounts, click here.

The soil types in Rice County, as discovered by European settlers, are well suited for agricultural practices.  In fact, the township of Richland was named for that very reason.  The prairie regions were the first areas that were converted into agricultural land, as it was much easier (as opposed to forested regions)  to clear for crop cultivation.  Although, with some hard labor, the soils of the wooded areas were also utilized by settlers.  To read more about the soils and geology of the different biomes of Rice County, go to the Environment page.

Some settlers came to Rice County solely to take advantage of the opportunities that the county's hydrology had to offer.  For those who were seeking to reap benefits from milling, the Cannon and Straight Rivers healthily provided powerful resources (Fossum 1930).  For example, John North, the founder of Northfield, was not interested in starting a town.  Rather, he wanted to start a more organized milling system, "... for in those days the settlers raveled as much as a hundred miles to have their wheat ground and  lumber sawed at these primitive mills." (Weicht, CL, "Residents, Citizens, Neighbors" in Carlin 1976 p.23).  North had his eyes set on the potentially rewarding economic benefits of an efficient milling system.

The Pre-emption Act of 1841 and the Homestead Act of 1862 also drew settlers to the area.  The Pre-emption Act gave the right of a person to settle on a plot of land, improve it, and then be able to buy the land at a minimal price without competition at a land sale.  These settlers bought land at $1.25/acre for a 1/4 section (160 acres) after being on it for fourteen months.  The Homestead Act was a similar agreement, in which a quarter section of land was legally granted to people who farmed it over a duration of five years.

Thus, Rice County's landscape was appealing to pioneer settlers because of its rich soils, powerful waterways, and federal legislation that offered free land, but the mere aesthetic beauty of the land was another draw for many Europeans.  For instance, Ernst Fleckenstein from Bavaria, Germany, came for scenic beauty, wooded hills, winding paths, and narrow roads.  The area reminded him of old world charm, and provided an abundance of choice grain, good well water, and sand rock caved to help his brewery (Swanberg 1976).

Some Economic Endeavors
Agriculture was by far the biggest source of income in the Rice County from 1850-1885.  Farmers grew various produce, including wheat, corn, and potatoes.  They also raised various livestock.  In 1860, 18,00 acres were under cultivation in Rice County for fruits and grains, producing 260,000 bushels of wheat in addition to other crops.  By 1872, 56,672 acres were under cultivation, producing 548, 000 bushels of wheat (Swanberg 1976).  Settlers were here to farm, as AJ Metcalf demonstrates in his 1857 letter: "Nothing pays better here at the present time than farming.  Grain of all kinds are high.  Oats are selling now for $1.30 cts for Bushel Corn for $1.50 wheat about the same as corn and all other produce in like proportion."  Click here to read his entire letter.   To see exactly what the farmers were growing, check out the census data.

There were other sources of income, however, besides farming.  Sorghum factories, maple sugaring operations, creameries, woolen mills, lumber mills, and flour mills were found throughout the county.  Flour mills were vital to the growth of Rice County and they will can be read about here.  Blacksmiths, general stores, and other businesses vital to the growth of a town were also found throughout the county.

Many of the side industries relied upon Rice County's rich natural resources, the agricultural produce of farmers, and technology that allowed settlers to increase their production.  An example is the sorghum factories.  One such factory was run by Seth Kenney in Morristown.  In 1860 he produced 32 gallons a day with just two wooden rollers and his oxen as power.  By the time of the Civil War, sorghum sold for $1-$1.25 a gallon, and Kenney was producing 12 barrels a day with the help of a steam engine.  In 1879, he received a 15 horsepower engine from Germany, which produced  700 gallons sorghum syrup and  600 pounds amber sugar a day (Swanberg 1976).

Another industry that  relied upon this mix of the land's natural resources, the produce of the farmers, and technology was milling.  The flour mills will be discussed later.  The Faribault Woolen Mills, which started in 1865 because of an abundance of wool in the area.  Wool was only made in the summer due to absence of wool in winter and unheated buildings (Swanberg 1976).  The census data shows a large peak in sheep populations in Bridgewater, Richland, and Wheatland in 1870.  The advent of the civil war can also help explain this large peak.  Check out the census data for yourself.

Natural resources also became very important during the 1857 Panic.  During this time families who lived near the Big Woods survived by producing maple syrup and collecting Ginseng (Swanberg 1976).

Milling

Milling has long and prosperous history in Rice County.  The combination of the power of the Cannon and Straight Rivers and the rich source of lumber from the Big Woods brought settlers here, such as John North, strictly to build mills (Gunderson 1987, Fossum 1930).  As John North, founder of Northfield recounts in a letter later in his life, "I did not at first contemplate starting a town, much less a city; I thought only of a mill" (North, quoted in Berg 1959, p. 104).  By the end of the century, there were 15 flour mills along the banks of the Cannon and Straight Rivers (Fossum 1930).

The first mill was erected in Faribault in 1856; it was a sawmill and was converted into a grist mill in 1857.  John North's mill was erected in Northfield in 1856 as well (Fossum 1930).  The first milling equipment had to be shipped from St. Louis to Hastings, and then taken by ox cart to the site.  When the Scott brothers brought one of the first saw mills to the county, the machinery has to by shipped from St. Louis.  It came by boat to Hastings and then it took 12 yoked oxen to haul the boiler from Hastings.  A new road was cut to from Cannon City to bring it the rest of the way (DAR 1914).

As the years progressed, more mills were added and production increased until in 1880 daily capacity among the mills was 3,000 barrels of flour a day.  The flour coming out of Rice County commanded some of the highest prices in the country and was considered some of the finest (Fossum 1930).  The flour from the Archibald's mill on the west bank of the Cannon took first prize for flour at Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia 1876 (Gunderson 1987).  The mills also turned the area towns into rapidly growing and prosperous cities as they became important trade centers for farmers.  Kirk Jeffery writes, "... Northfield got its economic start as a processing and trade center for farmers" ("Bread and Butter" in Carlin 1976, 41).

Production also increased due to the increased technology.  The main players in the improvement of technology were the Archibalds of Dundas and Ames in Northfield.  The Archibalds started their first mill in 1857 in Dundas (Fossum 1930).  In the late 1860s the La Croix brothers, millwrights from Canada, brought knowledge of French milling practices to the Archibald  mill (Fossum 1930, Swanberg 1976).  With their help and the best equipment imported from Europe, the Archibalds perfected milling techniques until they were producing the best flour in the country.  This technique was stolen from them by George H. Christian, who passed it onto Minneapolis millers.  The Archibalds continued to stay up on latest techniques building more mills and updating until the peak in 1880.  At this time their mill burned down and they sold their patent to General Mills and their land to local citizens (Fossum 1930).  Ames bought North's original mill towards the end of the Civil War and reconstructed North's sawmill as a flour mill in 1869, at the current site of the Malt-O-Meal factory.  Ames was also influential in improving milling technique in Rice County.  Both the Archibalds and Ames ran the millstones slowly so that the flour was not heated nor discolored and so the bran was not cut more than necessary.  Ames also experimented with the purification process to separate the light particles from the middlings.  The process as perfected by Ames and the Archibalds lead to the best flour in the nation and higher yields.  In the 1870s, Northfield flour received $11 to $12 a barrel, more than any other Minnesota flour (Jeffery, K., "Bread and Butter in Carlin 1976).  To read more about the technological improvements made by Rice County Millers and specifically the Archibalds, read Fossum's "Early Milling in the Cannon River Valley."

The presence of milling in Rice County had a large effect on settlement and on the agriculture of the area. The presence of the mills provided a close and convenient processing point for a settler's crops.  Before the establishment of the mills a settler had to travel to Hastings to sell his crops, a two-day trip (Swanberg 1976).  As wheat prices increased, it spurred increased planting of spring wheat, increased flour production, and increased settlement (Gunderson 1987, Fossum 1930).  Gunderson writes, "As wheat prices rose, so did land sales and population.  By 1867 only one percent of federal lands were left to be sold in Rice County, and Northfield's population grew fifty-eight percent in the five years following the war" (1987, p.21).  And Fossum states, "The great demand for the improved flour generated an increased demand for hard spring wheat and thereby augmented the price of the farmer's wheat crop to the point to where it was double that of former years" (Fossum 1930, p.278-279). Based on this information, the census data should show an increased production of spring wheat between 1860 and 1870.  This is shown in the data for Rice County as a whole, and in the particular townships.

Diversification of Agriculture
In 1869, wheat prices dropped below what it cost the farmers to produce the grain.  Additionally, settlement in Minnesota spread out into the Red River Valley and began growing wheat there, thus increasing the volume of wheat produced in Minnesota, and forcing prices even lower.  This all hurt the milling industry in Rice County, which began to struggle even though it was producing the best flour in the country (Gunderson 1987).  This drop in wheat prices lead farmers to diversify.  As Hong writes, "But by 1869 farmers in  Rice County were sowing fewer acres of wheat and devoting more space to grass and other varieties of grain to feed the sheep and stock of which they were raising more.  Two cheese factories were operating, and 644 apple trees were bearing apples.  The changeover from wheat farming to diversifies farming was already beginning" (1969, p.6).

This diversification can be seen in the census data.  Rice County as a whole shows a drop in wheat production to around 1860 levels in 1880.  Meanwhile the amount of oats and indian corn increases.  However, this trend is not seen as clearly in our three townships.  In fact, wheat continues to increase in both Bridgewater and Wheatland Townships from 1870 to 1880.  Richland shows a small decrease in wheat yields from 1870 to 1880.  But the census data for the townships do show trends of diversification as oat yields increase in Bridgewater and Wheatland, and indian corn yields increase in all three.  Livestock numbers also rise in all three townships between 1860 and 1880, which also shows a trend of diversification.

After 1880 until the early part of the 20th century dairy farms overtook the area.  Between 1880 and 1910 dairy cattle numbers nearly tripled in Rice County (Gunderson 1987).  Accompanying the growth in dairy farms was the establishment of multiple creameries in the county.  Schilling, a farmer and a reporter for Northfield News during this time period, writes in his memoirs: "I have seen the dairy industry grow from a very few farmers shipping milk on the morning trains to the building of the two large plants that make Northfield the largest dairy manufacturing center of producers in the state" (1935).  He attributes some of the decline in other agricultural production to various pests, such as the chinch bug and the army worm.  Throughout his columns in Northfield News he "preach[ed] cow," which he saw as the savior of the farmer (Schilling 1935).  His words must have taken hold as the motto for Northfield shows, Cows, Colleges, and Contentment.

The Role of Transport
Transportation played a vital role in the economics of Rice County.  When settlers first came to Rice County they relied heavily upon the roads connecting towns to Hastings, which was connected to the rest of the world via the Mississippi River.  When Mrs. Ann Alexander arrived in Northfield in 1854 with her family, they brought 12 teams of oxen, cattle, sheep, and pigs.  Everything that they consumed their first year was brought from Hastings, 28 miles away, which kept a man and ox cart on the road all the time.  A barrel of pork barely lasted a week (DAR 1914).  The equipment for the early mills and other businesses had to be shipped via St. Louis by boat and then transported by ox cart to the location (DAR 1914).  There was a large connection between the markets in St. Louis and other towns along the Mississippi River and much of Southeast Minnesota.  John Campbell's letter to his brother in Rice County demonstrates this connection.  He wrote to advocate the planting of flax for the St. Louis market and wanted his brother to send him contacts.  To read the an excerpt of this letter, click here.

One reason that milling became so big in Rice County was because it provided a local processing place for the local farmers' wheat.  As the mills grew and could handle the produce of the local area, settlers no longer had to make the burdensome trip to Hastings to sell their crop.  Transportation also played a key role in the mills demise in Rice County as well.  The railroad first came to Rice County in 1858, but the project died due to problems with funding soon after (Jeffery, K., "Bread and Butter" in Carlin 1976).  A rail link to Minneapolis, however, was completed in 1871, which meant that Rice County mills had to compete with large-scale Minneapolis mills.  Rice County mills did expand, but in 1876 the Minneapolis Miller's Association formed a buyers' pool, which created a monopoly over the wheat in Minnesota.  Rice County mills just could not compete (Gunderson 1987).

The advent of the railroads also helped the newly developing dairy industry in the county in the late 1880s and early 1890s.  Railways allowed creameries to have a larger market than otherwise would be possible as products could be quickly shipped to new locales before spoiling.  For example, the creamery in Webster, Minnesota relied heavily upon the rail connection to the Twin Cities to sell its produce (Swanberg 1976).

To learn more about the role of the railroad in Minnesota, click below:
The Role of the Railroad in Minnesota from 1850 to 1885  by Jenny Makosky

Environmental Impact
Many of the early economic activities of Rice County effected the natural environment.  Farming practices definitely changed the soil, causing erosion, which decreased the fertility of the land.  This is covered in the Soils section of the Environment page.

Milling greatly altered the landscape.  The lumber mills lead to the cutting down of many trees in the Big Woods.  Additionally the dams associated with the mills altered the Cannon and Straight Rivers. These dams were small-scaled dams and thus did not have the impact of dams like Hoover Dam on the Colorado River.  Small-scale dams lower water quality, reduce species diversity, change downstream ecosystems that need sporadic flooding, disrupt the continuity of water flow, block the movement of sediment downstream.  They also usually create murkier and warmer water downstream, which often favors non-native species (Pottinger 2001, Maclin and Bowman 2002, "Not so Fast" 2001).  To read in more detail about the environmental impacts of dams, go to The Ecology of Dam Removal at the American Rivers website.