Roswell and Elizabeth Garst Farmstead Historic District
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Garst Farmstead Historic District
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| Location | Orange Township, Guthrie County, at 1390 Highway 141, Coon Rapids, Iowa postal address |
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| Coordinates | 41°51′32″N 94°40′15″W / 41.85889°N 94.67083°WCoordinates: 41°51′32″N 94°40′15″W / 41.85889°N 94.67083°W |
| Area | 53.3 acres (216,000 m2) |
| NRHP reference # | 09000610 |
| Added to NRHP | August 12, 2009 |
The Roswell and Elizabeth Garst Farmstead Historic District is a farm in Guthrie County, Iowa, United States, near the city of Coon Rapids. It is significant as the home of farmer and hybrid corn populizer Roswell Garst. During the 1930s and 1940s, Garst played an active role in the conversion of old-style family farms to modern agribusiness. He was a key marketer of hybrid seed corn, which greatly increased corn yields per acre. Further, he espoused the use of nitrogen and other chemical fertilizers to renew soil so that fields need not be left fallow in order for the soil to replenish, allowing farmers to grow more acres of corn. Additionally, he embraced the use of cellulose from corncobs left after processing seed corn as cattle feed.
The farm is also famous as site of a visit on September 23, 1959, by Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev. The visit was not their first meeting, and it was by Khrushchev's request. Garst's farm had been visited by Soviet officials first in 1955, as an unofficial extra when they were on an organized tour of smaller farms. The Garst farm, with its use of hybrid corn and other agricultural innovations, was the only large size farm at all comparable to the scale of Soviet collective farms that the official was able to visit, and that was only by getting away from the official tour. Subsequently, Garst visited the Soviet Union to sell hybrid corn there and spread information about modern American farming methods. He met Khrushchev, and they found they had much in common. Three years later, a group of Soviet officials were sent to spend three months at the farm, participating in all of its activities. When Khrushchev visited America in 1959, he was adamant that his visit include a trip to Garst's farm in Iowa.
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