The Tennessee Agricultural Museum, located on the grounds of the Ellington Agricultural Center in Nashville has an extensive collection of farm artifacts from the 19th and early 20th centuries. A two-story plantation barn in which such exhibits as a woodworking collection, buggies, wagons and large items like the McCormick reaper and Jumbo steam engine spotlight the rich rural heritage of the state. The museum also houses a wide variety of rural Tennessee prints, folk art sculptures and textiles. 

Visitors can take part in special events like the annual Music & Molasses Festival, a country celebration of the harvest season held each October. Molasses making the old-time way is one of the many special demonstrations that can be enjoyed with cooking and tasting at the sorghum mill. The event, with two music stages, draws several thousand people to the agricultural museum each year.

The Historic Rural Life Festival, held in May of each year, promotes the history of agriculture by featuring traditional crafts, farm animals, demonstrations and shade tree activities. Attracting around 6,000 school children and adults with such activities as sheep sheering, butter churning, cow milking, story-telling, horse shows and gardening, this popular festival encourages students to notice the changes that electricity and modern conveniences brought to the farm. 

Summer Saturdays are fun-filled activities for the entire family. From heirloom gardening to butterfly stations, story-tellers and log cabin activities, there will be different things for families to see and do each weekend. Sampling unusual foods, grooming and riding miniature donkeys, enjoying old-time music, feeding the hungry goats and learning to make an applehead doll are just a few of the activities that can be enjoyed. Even adults can join in with such courses as; basket making, quilting, spinning and other traditional skills.

A special treat for the schools in the area, the Museum offers teachers the opportunity to bring their classes and study a particular subject area of the Museum, as well as special seasonal activity programs such as Tennessee's First Farmers--An Indian Legacy, George Washington:  First President & Farmer, Country Kitchen, Spring Greens and Other Things and Patch, Pinch and Preserve.