Working the land

Long Prairie man remembers early days of SWCD

By Tim King

Meryl and Linda Wegner of rural Long Prairie. In the back ground is the shade garden with wild flowers that Linda designed. Meryl, who planted more than 1,000 trees in his lifetime, was the first paid employee of the newly established Soil & Water Conservation District (SWCD) 60 years ago. Photo by Colin King.

If Meryl Wegner of Long Prairie, now in his early 80s, were to buy a place in the country today the first thing that he would likely do on that new place would be to plant trees. That’s what he did 20 years ago when he and Linda bought their land that they live on today. Among those trees are stocky 20-to-30 foot Norway Pines. Just a few miles west of their current home is an 80-acre farm with a towering stand of Norway, or Red, Pine that Meryl planted when he lived there with his first wife, who is now deceased.

“I’d recommend planting Norway Pine just about anywhere” he said. ‘They grow well in most soil types.”

It is likely Meryl’s inclination to plant and care for things led to him being the first paid employee of the Todd County Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD), which celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2025. At the time, farmers across the country were forming county SWCDs in hopes that improved land stewardship would prevent the horrors of the Dust Bowl from repeating themselves.

As Meryl recalls it, there were five Todd County farmers that were very interested in soil and water conservation who got together to form the Todd County SWCD. The five were scattered around all corners of the County and that allowed  them to form the first Board of Supervisors.

One of the new Supervisors was from the Bertha area where young Meryl was operating a 26-cow dairy farm.

“They started asking around for an employee and the farmer from Bertha said, ‘I know just the fellow,’” Meryl recalled.

After not many formalities, the Supervisors offered Meryl the job and he accepted.

“I remember my first day at work,” Meryl said. “I worked with Al Fisher, who was the District Conservationist. We surveyed and laid out contour strips on a farm. We walked that whole farm surveying it. I had never walked so much in my life.”

When Meryl got home that evening he told his wife that if he had to walk that much every day he was going to quit his new job.

But he didn’t quit and over the years he laid out quite a few more contour strips.

Contour strips were designed to allow a farmer to farm following the contours of the land rather than up and down a hillside.

“They were 100- foot wide strips of annual crops like corn and then a 100-foot wide strip of a permanent crop like alfalfa,” said Meryl, who eventually sold his cattle and became the SWCD’S first employee. “That kept the rain water and the soil from running down the hill side.”

At first the job didn’t amount to much since resources were limited.

“They would call me and have me come to Long Prairie for a project,” Meryl said. “After a couple of hours they’d say that was all for the day and send me home. It was a long drive from Bertha and back for a few hours of work.”

Even with short work days, Meryl and the Supervisors started getting conservation practices onto Todd County’s agricultural landscape. In addition to contour strips there were wildlife ponds designed to provide wildlife habitat, as well to hold water and prevent flooding. There were also stock watering ponds designed to provide water for livestock grazing far from the barn.

“Those had to be at least nine feet deep so they would never dry up,” Meryl said. “I laid out hundreds of them and only one dried out.”

One reason Meryl was successful in locating places for live stock ponds was that he spent a lot of time walking the land and he grew to know what he was looking for. Another reason was that the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Soil Conservation Service, with assistance from the SWCD, University of Minnesota, and the Todd County Board of Commissioners, completed the Soil Survey of Todd County in 1984.

Meryl in his office showing the awards he’s received for his years of dedication to soil and water conservation.

“Those scientists walked the entire County taking soil borings,” Meryl recalls. “Those fellows were good soil scientists.”

Among other things, they were thorough, according to the Soil Survey, a 300-page book of maps and soil descriptions.

“Soil scientists observed the steepness, length, and shape of slopes; the general pattern of drainage; the kinds of crops and native plants growing on the soils; and the kinds of bedrock. They dug many holes to study the soil profile,” writes the Survey.

Meryl spent his first decade at the SWCD working without soil maps. When Todd County’s Soil Survey was published in the mid-1980s it provided an excellent tool for helping to decide where to place ponds, survey and lay out contour strips, and even shelter belts to catch the snow and hold water in place.

“We had a cost-sharing program to help farmers plant shelter belts,” Meryl said. “At first we didn’t know for sure what trees would work at a location but the soils maps helped us understand what would grow well.”

In helping farmers design effective shelter belts, Meryl would recommend a sort of stair step layout.

“You’d put a short tree species first, the next row would be a taller species, and then you’d plant the tallest. That’s the best way to catch the snow,” he said.

Meryl spent decades planting trees, providing habitat for wildlife, and preserving and building top soil across Todd County. He has plaques on the wall of his office to prove it, but the real testament to his dedication is the thousands of trees, on his farm and across the county’s landscape.