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There’s an old saying that goes something like this: “Sometimes you have to look back on where you’ve been to know where you’re going.” While I’m not a fanatic about history, I believe it certainly has its place in our society today.
Whenever I take a road trip across Kansas or some other destination across our great land, I often stop along the way to read historical markers. More often than not they are half hidden by vegetation and often include details about battles, pestilence and devastation as well as discovery, success and progress.
When Mom and Dad were alive we sometimes drove to a handful of cemeteries in rural Kansas and Missouri to pay homage to our relatives. Below the headstones rested the remains of men in our family who spent their lives planting and harvesting behind sweating teams of horses, butchering hogs on bitterly cold days and teaching new sons about the soil.
Also down there were the remains of women who collected eggs, washed clothes by hand, cooked skillets full of fried chicken and managed to be good wives and mothers under sometimes nearly impossible conditions.
They are the ones who wove the fabric that serves as the yardstick for our new and dynamic future. What happened with these early pioneers has a direct bearing on our present successes and failures.
One such winning story revolves around the strides agriculture and its people have made in the interests of conservation. Not everything that has happened in conservation can be limited to the last 10 or 20 years. Many of the innovations in conservation began taking shape in the years after the Dirty ‘30s, nearly 80 years ago.
Thousands of shelterbelts were planted in Kansas and other Great Plains states. After rain finally began falling again, ponds dotted the landscape holding this precious resource. Landowners learned to make the water walk and not run, conserving it for livestock and sometimes for thirsty crops.
Terraces snaked their way across thousands of miles of farmland holding soil and water in place. Soil-stopping strip cropping created patterns and reduced wind erosion.
Slowly but surely conservation measures continued to slow the soil erosion gorilla that had stomped across the High Plains leaving in its wake gullies the size of automobiles, drifts of soil as high as fence posts, withered lifeless wheat and corn and starving livestock on barren pastures.
Yes, with knowledge, education, patience, understanding, hard work and Mother Nature’s ability to heal herself, the rich, fertile land recovered. Throughout this renaissance of the land, farmers and ranchers learned that stewardship of the soil, water and other resources is in the best interests of us all.
Guess what?
We’re in our fourth or fifth year of another drought depending on which part of the state you live in. Some farmer/stockmen from the eastern third of Kansas believe the drought is moving their way. And if you haven’t traveled to the western third of the state, crop and livestock conditions are turning from bad to worse.
It is important for all of us to understand what has happened in the past so we can place present events and future needs in their proper perspectives.
A new, modern twist may be nothing more than an old theme or something coming around after having gone around. After all human history is comprised of human ideas. Nearly all ideas are timeless, just waiting to be dusted off, reshaped and used again.
John Schlageck is a leading commentator on agriculture and rural Kansas. Born and raised on a diversified farm in northwestern Kansas, his writing reflects a lifetime of experience, knowledge and passion.