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. When Khrushchev visited America in 1959, he was adamant that his visit include a trip to Garst's farm in Iowa. Currently the main house of the Roswell and Elizabeth Garst Farmstead Historic District is the office for the
Whiterock Conservancy. The site is located at 1390
Highway 141 in the northwestern corner of
Guthrie County. ==References==