Glenbow Archives
NA-3092-13
Amodel farm
just a year before this photo
was taken in 1913 as seeding began at
what is now known as the Lethbridge Re-
search Centre, the city of Lethbridge host-
ed the International Dryland Farming
Congress. That event more than 100 years
ago drew about 5,000 delegates from 15
countries, including Italy, India, China,
Palestine and Persia, who travelled to
Lethbridge to look at modern-day farming
practices.
The Lethbridge Experimental Farm, as
it was known then, was established by the
federal government in 1906.
Prior to that, it was a “model farm”
created in 1900 by the Canadian North
West Irrigation Company. More southern
Alberta farmers were beginning to use
irrigation and the company felt it needed
a research farm to demonstrate farming
practices under irrigation.
Land was set aside and, in 1901, the
district enticed William Harmon Fairfield,
the director of the agricultural experiment
station in Laramie, Wyoming, to come to
Lethbridge to establish this model farm.
News reports from the day said “he was ex-
pected to run in ditches, plant trees, fence
and break the property, seed it to suitable
crops and to demonstrate good irrigated
farming practices by helping to solve any
problems encountered by settlers.”
Fairfield not only accomplished all
that, but is also credited with bringing a
few pounds of soil from Wyoming that
was naturally inoculated with rhizobial
bacteria so southern Alberta farmers
could begin growing alfalfa to feed cattle.
The soil was scattered on a few acres to
start with. Once one field was inoculated,
soil from there could be used to inoculate
other fields.
In 1905, the irrigation company offered
the very successful model farm to the Do-
minion Department of Agriculture. One
year later, the Dominion Experimental
Station at Lethbridge was made Canada’s
sixth experimental farm.
AGAINST
THE GRAIN
Spring
2015
Grains
West
50
