Forces Driving More
on what the land could provide, but rather on the profits to be earned after it was converted into streets and building sites. When he sold the land, my father didn’t anticipate a future subdivision, and street access was limited. Undeterred, the new buyers took my mother to court, where a judge ordered additional land be surrendered for roads. Because it was just farmland, compensation was set at one dollar.
People commonly refer to land as “dirt” before spending small fortunes to cover it over with everything from asphalt to ornamental plants. Dirt is what irritates eyes on windy days, sticks to clothes, muddies cars after rain showers, turns pristine streams brown. Dirt often seems like an annoyance, with little redemptive value. Yet dirt is Earth’s protective skin. Teeming with microscopic organisms, dirt is the membrane between a geological world of inert rocks and minerals, and a biological world chock-full of life. Dirt plus life becomes soil. Within a handful of rich soil are billions of living creatures busily breaking down minerals in rocks and decomposing organic matter. Without any fanfare, soil supplies plants with nutrients, filters away impurities to provide clean water, sequesters carbon, and remediates waste and pollution. The United States has some 22,000 different soil types. The best for growing food is a mix of silt, clay, and sand, which offers excellent drainage, circulation of air, and access to nutrients. To locate such soil, simply follow the ancient glaciers that started in the Arctic and descended through Canada. What they left in their wake became the better portion of the Great Plains as well as parts of the Southeast and Northwest. These vintage soils were protected by perennial grasses. Roots extending three to seventeen feet belowground, along with flat gradients or gently rolling hills, minimized erosion from wind and rain. Meanwhile, deep underground, weathering rocks were releasing minerals and new soil was forming. As time went by, a natural balance evolved between loss from erosion and new formation. Early settlers venturing across vast expanses of grass-covered plains had no idea that America was home to some of the world’s finest soils.