In the year 1826, Alexander Faribault became the first Euro-American to settle in the area of Minnesota that became known as Rice County, but it wasn't until May 1853 that the first farmer, Luke Hulett, settled there. Agriculture in any given area is firmly connected to the physical features of that particular region, and in Rice County it was no different. When the Hulett family settled in Rice County and began farming, what did the landscape have to offer them? What was the physical makeup of the land in this area like when the first farmers settled here, and why was it like that? Agriculture became, and still is, one of the most important aspects of life in Rice County, and this whole way of life is influenced by the physical attributes of the land. In this paper I plan to examine what the landscape in Rice County was like in 1850, and show how factors such as soil and fire shaped and influenced its composition before the advent of farming changed it forever.

Geographically speaking, Rice County is located in the southeastern portion of Minnesota, around 34 miles south of the Twin Cities metropolitan area, and 20 miles from the nearest port on the Mississippi River (Berg, 69). An examination of the physical makeup in Rice County shows that it contains parts of three separate watersheds: the Cannon, lower Minnesota, and Zumbro. While these are still intact, the vegetation that was present in 1850 was markedly different than it is today. The prairie-forest border ran through the center of Rice County, separating it into two distinct biomes. The forested region, which was part of the Big Woods, was located on the western side of the county. As you moved eastward throughout the county it became more and more open until you finally reached prairie. Today, due to the influence of man on this area, there is no longer this distinct boundary separating forest from prairie.

To begin with, I am going to look at the different types of vegetation that made up the environment in Rice County around 1850. The prairie-forest border is an important feature to consider when it comes to the landscape of Rice County because the two different biomes shaped the land in quite different ways. Rice County consisted of two different types of woodlands and one type of prairie-land in 1850: maple-basswood forest, oak woodland and brushland, and upland prairie (MN DNR, 4). The woodlands in Rice County were a part of the Big Woods that ran through much of Minnesota and Wisconsin at this time. The trees that are common in maple-basswood forests are mainly elm, basswood, sugar maple, red oak and white oak. These trees are very useful as building materials, but they are all fairly susceptible to fire, which is why they are located more towards the interior of the forest. All of these trees were found in the western part of Rice County where the Big Woods descended into this region.

As you moved east, in the northern and southern parts of Rice County, but not in the center, you came across the oak woodland and brushland. The trees that made up these particular forests were mainly bur and pin oak, with some thickets and openings into the prairie. These areas were located on the outskirts of the maple-basswood forests right before the prairie opened up. One of the reasons that this type of vegetation occurs in these areas is that bur and pin oaks are better able to endure the fires that were common occurrences around the prairie-forest border, due to their corky bark (Curtiss-Wedge, 69). Finally, once you moved into the eastern section of Rice County, you reached the upland prairie area. The vegetation in this area consisted mainly of big and little bluestem, indian grass, and other important prairie grasses.

There were several factors that helped shape the types of vegetation that were supported by the land in Rice County. One of the most important factors that determined the type of vegetation that occurred around the prairie-forest border was fire: "the vegetation was most strongly correlated with the fire-probability pattern" (Grimm (2), 291). The frequency of fires in a certain area would have a large impact on whether maple-basswood forests would be able to survive there. If fires were frequent, maple-basswood forests would be unable to grow because they are not resistant to fires like bur and pin oaks. This is why there were the three distinct types of vegetation in Rice County in 1850. Prairies existed in areas where there was a lot of fire activity, oak woodlands grew right around the border of such activity because they could resist fire better than other trees, and directly behind them grew the maple-basswood forest that was not fire resistant. The distinct prairie-forest border was a direct result of the frequency with which fires were able to sweep through the land.

Since fire was one of the direct factors that influenced the types of vegetation that grew in Rice County, it is now time to look at what factors influenced the frequency of fire activity in this area. When you see changes from the prairie to the woodlands, you can determine that it has a direct correlation to fire frequency. In order for forests to grow in an area where there was prairie land before, there needs to be a reduction in fire activity. This reduction can result from causes such as increased precipitation and decreased temperatures (Grimm (1), 311). It is easy to see how these two factors would influence the rate of fire activity in an area. With an increased amount of precipitation, it would be much harder for a fire to begin. A decrease in temperature would also help to keep the soil from drying out, which would also cause a decline in the amount of fires in an area. According to E.C. Grimm, core samples taken from lakes in the Big Woods region show an increase in the amount of precipitation around the middle 1800’s, because for these years there is evidence of an increase in runoff. As for the decreased temperature hypothesis, correlation of the expansion of the Big Woods with the Little Ice Age supports the theory that a cooler climate also helped with the expansion of the Big Woods (Grimm (1), 340). Once the woodlands were established, they would also propagate the decline in fire activity because they would keep the area cooler and wetter than the prairies would.

Besides climactic changes, soil is another important factor in the frequency of fires in a given area (Grimm (2), 291). The reason that soil was of such importance when it came to fire activity depended on how quickly soil drained in a given area. If soil drained fast, it would not retain water and it would be easier for a fire to be sustained. If the soil did not drain quickly, it would retain the water and make it more difficult for the fire to sweep through. In the west part of Rice County, soil was heavily composed of clay and yellow loam, which resulted in a very rich and fertile soil (Curtiss-Wedge, 68). Soil that is heavy in clay drains slowly, so it can be shown that in the western part of Rice County the woodlands can be correlated to slow draining soil that would retard the approach of fires. In the eastern part of the county, the soil was much rockier. Pebbly or rocky soil would drain water much more quickly than the heavier clay, and it was in the eastern part of Rice County that there was prairie.

Rice County was a dynamic mixture of woodlands and prairies in the mid 1800’s. Before the 1850’s, many natural factors contributed to the development of the physical landscape that made up this region, and it was constantly changing due to their impact. Fire activity was the most influential as far as determining what species of plant life could survive in a given area. While fire was the most obvious force that shifted the composition of plant life in Rice County, it must also be remembered that the frequency of fires was determined by a number of different variables, both climactic and geological. Before man induced changes dramatically altered the physical landscape of Rice County, it was these natural factors that shaped and influenced this terrain.
 
 

Curtiss-Wedge, Franklyn. History of Rice and Steele Counties, Minnesota. H.C. Cooper, Jr. and Co. Chicago, IL. 1910.

Grimm, Eric C. "Chronology and dynamics of vegetation change in the prairie-woodland region of southern Minnesota, U.S.A." New Phytologist. 93:2. Pgs. 311-350. 1983.

Grimm, Eric C. "Fire and other factors controlling the big woods vegetation of Minnesota in the mid-nineteenth century." Ecological Monographs. 54:3. Pgs. 291-311. 1984.

Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. "Natural vegetation of Minnesota at the time of the public land survey, 1847-1907." Biographical Report No.1. 1988.