UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Pasto Agricultural Museum is always an interesting place during Ag Progress Days, and this year will not be an exception. Visitors will be engaged before they even step through the door.
Penn State’s Center for Virtual/Material Studies will demonstrate flax fiber processing just outside the museum’s entrance during the show Aug. 8-10. The center has been exploring the cultivation of flax, which will be processed into thread, which could be made into linen. Flax plants used in the experiment were grown at the Arboretum at Penn State. Documentation and photos of the center’s flax project can be seen on its dedicated flax website.
The demonstration is historical because flax was the first textile produced by humans. The oldest scraps of flax linen were found in prehistoric cave dwellings in the Caucasus and are estimated to be 38,000 years old. Later, in ancient Egypt, the textile was used for everything from day wear to mummy bandages.
Two thousand years after that, linen went global. The ancient Phoenicians exported linen yarn to Scotland, Persia, India and China. In the colder regions of Europe, linen was used to make shirts, shifts and chemises that were worn under wool outerwear. In fact, linen is the origin of the words “lining” and “lingerie.”
Once inside the museum, fascinating exhibits await visitors, according to Rita Graef, director of the Pasto Agricultural Museum and Armsby Respiration Calorimeter. Among them:
— A new exhibit that features collections from across the College of Agricultural Sciences that are instrumental to teaching, research and engagement. Included are an Armsby Respiration Calorimeter and many specimens from the Frost Entomological Museum collection.
“Together, these collections total more than 2.4 million objects serving tens of thousands of researchers, students and the public annually,” Graef said. “Collections are not only the result of research and field work, but they also offer opportunities for new findings and discoveries without the cost of going out into the field."
— The Penn State University Press will again offer for sale new and long-running titles related to agriculture and the environment and history. Its display will be located just inside the museum entrance.
– Macrobes for Microbes, a graduate student club, will unveil a “Winogradsky column,” made to highlight the diversity and resiliency of microbial communities living in different soils throughout Pennsylvania.
It will generate interest in and understanding of the complex and varied microbial world around us, Graef explained.
“This living exhibit will be housed in the Pasto Agricultural Museum,” she said. “It will allow the casual observer to better understand the composition and development of microbial communities as they vary across familiar Pennsylvanian environments, such as wetlands and agricultural fields.”
Like every year at Ag Progress Days, the Pasto Museum strives to connect the agricultural past with present-day practice and research around food, environment and renewable resources, Graef noted. The Pasto Museum's exhibits, programs, demonstrations and tours provide an understanding of local and regional history, where food comes from, as well as the inventions and technology that have made food production on a large scale possible.
"The museum collection focuses on what life was like and how work was done before gasoline engines and rural electrification," she said. “Programs at the museum will immerse visitors in thinking about our food and fiber systems and natural resources. The museum provides an opportunity to explore important issues facing agriculture and the environment in a historical context.”
For information about the museum and to learn about programs running through fall 2023, visit agsci.psu.edu/pasto. During Ag Progress Days, the museum opens at 10 a.m. each day and closes one hour prior to show times.
Sponsored by Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, Ag Progress Days is held at the Russell E. Larson Agricultural Research Center at Rock Springs, located 9 miles southwest of State College on Route 45. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Aug. 8; 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Aug. 9; and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Aug. 10. Admission and parking are free.