Luther Carson, foreground, points out aspects of the Living Crops Museum to a freshman agriculture class at Wilmington College. (AP Photo/Wilmington College, Randy Sarvis)

The Living Crops Museum started by Tom Stilwell contains 70 plots on its 1 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 about 50 miles northeast of Cincinnati.

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 near Piqua, Ohio, 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.

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.

The museum is open to anyone who wants to visit during daylight.