HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE IN MINNESOTA.* 



BY JAMES J. HILL. 



Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: It is a particularly 

 pleasant occasion to see together so many of the old faces, and 

 hardly any other occasion would bring so many of them to- 

 gether. I have often thought that the State of Minnesota was 

 fortunate in the character of the men who came here at an 

 early day and into whose hands the forming of the state was 

 committed. To none of those men can we look with more grati- 

 tude than to our distinguished fellow-citizen, Gov. Ramsey, who 

 came here in 1849, as the first Governor of the Territory of 

 Minnesota, and has continued in the most active manner 

 through all the trying periods of the growth of the state. I 

 am sure that every one here to-night will feel, as I do, rejoicing 

 that he is with us, so strong and so hearty. And we hope that 

 for many years we shall see him present on occasions like this, 

 when the old settlers are brought together. 



I have been asked to speak to you on the agricultural his- 

 tory of Minnesota. The detailed history of agriculture in Min- 

 nesota would practically be the history of the state, and would 

 take a great deal more time than you could spare or than I 

 could give. We can, however, go back to the time when it was 

 hardly considered that Minnesota was an agricultural state or 

 that it ever was to be an agricultural state. 



I see here my good friend. Gen. Le Due, T think you may 

 not all know that Gen. Le Due, in 1853, partly at his own ex- 

 pense and partly at the expense of the Territory, was charged 

 with demonstrating to the rest of the country that Minnesota 

 was not an utterly barren waste, that it was not a country 

 limited to the raising of a few cranberries and some muskrat 

 skins. I received a note from the General, the other evening, 



*An Address at the Annual Meeting of the Minnesota Historical So- 

 ciety, Jan. 18, 1897. 



