Ever seen a cotton pod growing in an Ohio field? Now you can

A professor's project has proved to be invaluable to his agriculture students.
WILMINGTON, Ohio (AP) -- A college professor has created a living learning aid to help students who may have never seen or touched crops that aren't generally grown in Ohio.
The Living Crops Museum started by Tom Stilwell contains 70 plots on its one acre. Students at Wilmington College, where Stilwell is an assistant professor of agriculture, helped plant the crops next to a soybean field in this Clinton County town, 65 miles southwest of Columbus.
People can see how a peanut plant grows and learn what a cotton pod looks like hanging on the plant.
"Some kids have never even seen oats," said Stilwell, 63, who grew up on a farm in Piqua and received a doctorate in agriculture from Ohio State University. "Corn and soybeans -- that's about it for what's grown in Ohio."
Stilwell planted the museum last year so Wilmington's 150 agriculture students could study seven main areas: forage perennials, legumes, annuals, tropical and industrial crops and food and feed grains.
Change
The museum has changed constantly since its inception. Stilwell hasn't been able to revive a patch of Kentucky bluegrass, and the chickpeas flourished at first but turned sickly. The pearl millet, an African plant that looks like a cross between a cornstalk and a cattail, matured and provided food for many birds.
This fall, students in Stilwell's soil class will test dirt from various plots to determine which fertilizer is needed for each plant.
Equine students have learned to identify plants that horses can eat safely. Agriculture-education majors will build a "forage notebook" in the spring, using pressed examples of the 30 plants in the collection.
And the grains classes will help harvest the corn.
"I didn't grow up on a farm, so I know it'll help me identifying crops in future classes," said Luther Carson, a junior from Grand Rapids who is majoring in agriculture and education. Carson, 23, worked one day a week at the museum this summer, mostly pulling weeds.
Other museums
Stilwell said he has found only two similar museums, one in Canada and one in Illinois. He hopes to improve the museum by finding varieties that adapt better to Ohio weather, and he's thinking about adding root crops, such as yams and potatoes, and possibly more tropical plants.
A man who was about to start a job involving sugar beets once stopped by so he could see what the plant looks like.
The museum is open to anyone who wants to visit during daylight hours.