Early subsistence Stearns County family farmers lived and conducted their business with little outside influence or control. With increased production, they came to depend more on outside markets and capital and less on family labor. And as problems beyond local control arose, they began to depend on the government to solve them. In the third phase of dairying in Stearns County, government became a permanent member of the family, and the family lost much of its former liberty in choosing how to live.

Early Government Involvement

Government and dairy farmers existed side by side from the time dairy farming began in the county. Most Stearns County settlers purchased their land from the state, from corporations, or from land speculators, but the Pre-emption Acts of 1841 and 1855 and the Homestead Act of 1862 made it possible for people with little money to obtain land for farming, too. Furthermore, although farmers relied on their own resources as a way of life, they accepted government aid after natural disasters such as blizzards, droughts, or grasshopper plagues, in the form of money, grain, and seed for planting as well as food, clothing, and shelter.

Ag Schools

Other groundwork, too, had been laid by the federal government for the early dairy farmers in the county. The U. S. Department of Agriculture, established in 1862, obtained cabinet status in 1889. In 1862 the Morrill Act provided for the establishment in each state and territory of a land-grant college to teach agriculture and the mechanic arts. The Hatch Act of 1887 provided for the organization of an experiment station in each land-grant college offering four-year courses in dairying.

Many Stearns County farm families took advantage of these agriculture courses by sending sons to study the latest methods of dairy farming. Ag schools taught farmers about new technology, about the adaptation of hardy alfalfa (hay that could survive the cold winters) in Minnesota, and about better modes of feeding, breeding, and housing cattle. Students took home their new knowledge to apply to family farming operations.