Over millions of years, the natural vegetation of the Great Plains
became mixture of grasses that could survive in a semi-arid climate. The
grass roots wove together to form sod. This sod is important to the
ecology of the region because it protects the soil in which plants grow.
The topsoil provides nutrients to the plants. When the nutrients are
depleted from the soil, it becomes exhausted and plants can't grow.
Over the centuries, man has made use of these grasslands. Indians hunted
there. Cattlemen used them to graze their cattle. Farmers turned them
into wheat fields. None of them worried about what would happen if the
soil blew away.
And blow away it did. In the 1930's, drought conditions along with man's
lack of knowledge about the environment, created one of the worst
environmental disasters in the United States history, The Dust Bowl.
It took millions of years for nature to create this area's natural
vegetation and only a few years to destroy it. Because of the change in
farming methods and the establishment of Grasslands much of the Dust
Bowl was repaired and is again fertile. The environmental disaster of
the Dust Bowl taught people the importance of caring for the land.
