That lake is fed from one at the top of the property that covers 12 acres.

“There are six acres that are over 50 feet deep,” Harding said. “At the base of it is 320 feet of eight-inch pipe that comes through the bottom. He ran that through to move water from lake to lake.”

The net result is that the cattle water troughs at the lowest points on the property are filled by gravity flow from the lakes above them.

Smith had also set up two irrigation systems on those upper hay meadows and three on the lower fields that were much like those used to irrigate corn fields in the Webbers Falls area, said Roger Morton, livestock manager on the farm.

The irrigation equipment was removed before the college acquired the property from the Farmers Home Administration.

Morton said he had visited with Smith on several occasions.

“He would come back after we got it for the college and he would tell us where water lines went,” Morton said.

It’s not unusual to walk through the woods on top of the hill and still find a random piece of plastic pipe that once fed water to marijuana growing in the woods, Morton said.

Today, Connors State College agricultural students learn cattle management with the herds on the Harding research station. Area public school students study ecology there several times throughout the year and the state holds educational sessions for teens in the summer.

The research station also is the center for a study of the nearly extinct American burying beetle, Morton said.

“It’s a very unique property,” Harding said.