As Cavalier County was settled in the 1880s, spring wheat and durum were the primary crops, along with barley, flax, and oats. Major changes in farming came in the 1910s, when on-farm grain storage became common and gas engine tractors replaced horses, reducing demand for oats and hay meadows and shifting more acres into wheat. In the 1920s, farms grew larger, new land opened for settlement, tractors broke up the prairie, and the combine increased productivity, but overproduction and falling prices followed, and prices remained low through the end of World War II. The stock market crash of 1929 led some farms to be abandoned or go bankrupt, and during the 1930s the Great Depression, drought, and frequent dust storms sharply reduced production, leading many people to rely on federal relief while farmers were encouraged to plant shelterbelts to reduce soil erosion. Labor shortages during World War II encouraged more mechanized and larger farm equipment, and from 1945 to 1959 the average farm grew from 590 acres to 755. By 1945, Cavalier County led the state in barley production with 143,542 acres planted. In the 1950s, stem rust devastated wheat and durum crops, but research at the Langdon Experiment Station developed resistant varieties that were grown into the 1960s. Wheat remained a major crop into the 1970s and 1980s, while oilseeds began to appear and rapeseed became popular in the 1980s, leading to canola production. In the 1990s, wet and humid weather sharply reduced durum acreage through disease, ending the area's reputation as the Durum Triangle, while canola acreage increased and helped make Cavalier County known as Canola Capital USA. Wheat and canola continued to lead production into the new century, soybeans suited to the area became popular in recent years, and in 2015 North Dakota legalized industrial hemp, with the Langdon Research Extension Center selected as the only station to conduct research trials on the crop, which had not been grown in the state since World War II. The Langdon Experiment Station, later renamed the Langdon Research Extension Center, was created in 1907 by the 10th Legislative Assembly through Senate Bill 111, with the county required to furnish the land, and in 1908 the legislature appropriated $10,000 for buildings and maintenance. Known in the 1920s as the Durum Station, it worked through the 1960s to improve the quality, appearance, and disease resistance of durum and wheat, then expanded work in the 1970s and 1980s on wheat, durum, barley, and alternative crops suited to the climate. Rapeseed research evolved into canola, making the center known in the 1980s through the 2000s as the Canola Station. In 2002, the Vic Sturlaugson Learning Center was built with $510,000 raised locally and $300,000 from the legislature, and construction began on the Agronomy Lab in 2014. The center is the only station to have tested new durum varieties since durum was introduced to the state, also housed a first-generation potato nursery for more than 80 years, and conducted research on shorthorn cattle, sheep, and hogs.