Hoard's Dairyman Farm

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Hoard's Dairyman Farm
Hoards old barn.jpg
The old barn and Guernsey cows at the Hoard's Dairyman Farm
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Nearest city Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin
Area173.7 acres (70.3 ha)
Built1899
Architectural styleItalianate
NRHP reference No. 78000105 [1]
Added to NRHPAugust 29, 1978

The Hoard's Dairyman Farm, just north of Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, was purchased in 1899 by W. D. Hoard, a former governor of Wisconsin. Hoard used the farm as a laboratory for testing ideas for his magazine Hoard's Dairyman , like the use of alfalfa for feeding dairy cattle. [2]

This farm was begun in the mid-1800s by Asa Snell. Much has changed since Snell's era, but a few of his buildings survive: the 1845 farmhouse, a machine shed/garage, a horse-barn/heifer shed, and the core of the main dairy barn. Snell's farmhouse is a two-story Italianate-styled building, with walls of brick made nearby at a brickyard owned by Snell himself and Milo Jones. A kitchen wing extends to the east leading to a summer kitchen, and other wings extend to the north and south. The house's roof was originally flat. Hoard replaced the flat roofs with hip roofs soon after he bought the farm. [3]

Hoard bought the farm in 1899. Before then he had served in the Civil War, edited the Jefferson County Union newspaper, started the Wisconsin Dairyman's Association, founded the important agricultural journal Hoard's Dairyman in 1885, and served one term as governor of Wisconsin from 1889 to 1891. Despite his venture into politics, Hoard remained very interested in agriculture and the scientific improvement of dairy practices. He bought the farm to use as a lab for testing the effectiveness and practicality of the ideas that he promoted in his magazine. [3]

These are some of the important innovations tested at the farm:

Guernsey July 2011 212.jpg

References

  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  2. "Hoard's Dairyman Farm". January 2012. Retrieved November 5, 2017.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Donald N. Anderson; Mark H. Kerschensteiner (January 5, 1978). "NRHP Inventory/Nomination: Hoard's Dairyman Farm". National Park Service . Retrieved November 5, 2017. With three photos.
  4. "Hoard's Dairyman Farm History". Hoard's Dairyman. October 17, 2016. Retrieved November 7, 2017.

42°56′48.8″N88°50′15.6″W / 42.946889°N 88.837667°W / 42.946889; -88.837667