When tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of human civilization .

When American statesman Daniel Webster uttered these words in 1840, it's unlikely that he had in mind a genre of art created from the fruits of farmers' toil. But if Webster could join the hordes of visitors at the Minnesota State Fair's annual display of crop art, he would surely be impressed by what can be accomplished with seeds and glue. The American bald eagle in hollyhock, alfalfa, red clover, bromegrass, watermelon, salsify, and cantaloupe seeds. A portrait of Barbra Streisand rendered in ground white corn, grits, timothy, poppy seeds, safflower, and peas.

Displayed next to prize-winning ears of corn, onions, potatoes, and other produce, crop art seems like a traditional hobby left over from a bygone era of homegrown self-sufficiency. In fact, seed mosaics were introduced to the fair only in 1965, and Minnesota's remains the sole state fair with a competitive category for the art form. The modern incarnation of crop art reportedly originated when two homemakers from rural Minnesota, inspired by a mosaic mural they had seen on a downtown Minneapolis office building, began reproducing their crewel patterns using agricultural materials. The first year of competition attracted just a handful of participants, but the second year saw a tenfold increase in the number of entries, one of which was a depiction of grouse by hairstylist Lillian Colton of Owatonna, Minnesota, who had happened upon the crop art display on her visit to the fair the year before.

Colton dominated the crop art show for the next 18 years, then retired from competition in 1984 to give other competitors a chance. Now 90 years old, she still spends the 12 days of the fair demonstrating the craft in front of a wall covered with examples of her work. A touch of glue on the end of a toothpick allows her to pick up seeds one by one and place them on a piece of canvas board prepared with a pencil outline and smeared with glue. A layer of polyurethane seals the seeds in place and, with luck, keeps the bugs away.

Colton uses 300 different types of seeds (all from plants that grow in Minnesota, in keeping with state fair rules; weed seeds are strictly forbidden). Acquaintances from the beauty shop supply her with seeds, as do family members still working the farm where she was raised.