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Texas Agriculture on Display in Lubbock, Telling Thrashers From Reapers and Teaching the Facts

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Tony Maples Photography

 

The Bayer Museum of Agriculture in Lubbock has taken root in the Panhandle, explaining to young and old alike just how the food that we’re presently eating actually gets to the table. Opening on a 25-acre property in 2012 after operating for 10 years in an extra building at the American Wind Power Center (also a great Texas stop), the museum features a 27,000-square-foot exhibit hall showing everything from history to technology in the farming industry, specifically in the Panhandle-Plains.

Texas Agriculture on Display in Lubbock, Telling Thrashers From Reapers And Teaching The Facts

Photo: Facebook/Bayer Museum of Agriculture

Visitors to the museum are treated to a variety of agricultural history displays and exhibits as well as educational signs which explain the thrashers, reapers, and old plows which are on display. It’s also home to a number of perfectly restored vintage tractors from the 1930s through the 1950s.

Texas Agriculture on Display in Lubbock, Telling Thrashers From Reapers And Teaching The Facts

Photo: Facebook/Bayer Museum of Agriculture

An exhibit on tractor repair shows the various implements and practices that were, and sometimes still are, needed directly on-site, in the barn, or in someone’s back forty. Blacksmithing also takes the limelight at the museum, including a blacksmith which is portrayed via video hologram while he explains his work. And a feature on cotton farming explains the history and developments in the industry, including that of the cotton gin, bringing daily production of finished cotton from approximately five pounds per day to 50, as well as the more modern Lummus Corp. gin with the capacity to produce 10,000 pounds of finished cotton per hour!

Texas Agriculture on Display in Lubbock, Telling Thrashers From Reapers And Teaching The Facts

Photo: Facebook/Bayer Museum of Agriculture

With a number of interactive exhibits, a gift shop, and meeting space, the Bayer Museum of Agriculture is a great place to learn about American farming practices, old and new. Representative of the commencement right on through to modern-day farming practices, the facility allows visitors a first-hand look into one of the first and very honorable livelihoods in the United States, educating visitors on an industry which many are increasingly less familiar with. With each new generation getting further from it, and a very small percentage of the population actually involved in agriculture and the production of food, the people in Lubbock, Texas are showing Americans the true and honest facts about an industry that’s more and more becoming technologically advanced and corporately owned.

Sources:

Texas Highways

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