![]() ![]() ![]() When the soil was exhausted in one place, farmers moved on to the next. ![]() Like farmers in colonial or antebellum times, settlers in the plains took advantage of the sheer abundance of land. The outcomes of the period-the plowing of marginal soil, dust storms, and outmigration-are interpreted as evidence that plains farmers were little different from other smallholders in the American past. 2 But for most historians and ecologists, the footprint of agricultural change extends further. The loss of wildlife habitat, native biodiversity, and soil biomass has been enormous. The consequences of encroachment on the American grasslands remain inescapable. With good reason, little in the conventional narrative of the Dust Bowl shades this visual framework away from a story of endangerment. Captured in faded grayscale photographs, the condition of treeless landscapes suggests only a trying future. On another, dust clouds rise against the barren earth and envelop nearby farmhouses. On one page, a group of harvesters wade into an endless horizon of wheat. The visual framework is usually established with ground-level photographs. ![]()
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