Throughout the first decade and a half of the 1900s, the University of Minnesota established six experimental agriculture research stations throughout the state of Minnesota. One such station was established in Duluth, in 1912. The Northeast Experiment Station, as it was called, had the mission to develop cold-climate crops and animals; things like cherries, plums, apples, rutabagas, hogs and chickens - all suited to be well adapted to our long winter and short summer growing seasons. Prior to the development of productivist agriculture, which started in the 1950s in the United States, the emphasis for agriculture was grow it locally. By the late 1960s, having an agricultural research station in the "red drift" zone (heavy, red clay) where Duluth is located was deemed "superfluous" and the station was shuttered. Recently, efforts have been made by Cindy Hale of the University of Minnesota Duluth's Natural Resources Research Institute to revive the remaining five acre orchard.
For a while, I have been tacitly involved with a loose group of people who are strong supporters of urban farming. So, strong and so passionate about it, they campaigned for and successfully changed a city ordinance allowing for the keeping of chickens within the city limits of Duluth. My involvement revolved around being technical support for their website, duluthcitychickens.org.
