MAN'S DISORDER OF NATURE S DESIGN IN THE 

 GREAT PLAINS^ 



By F. W. Albertson 

 Fort Hays Kansas State College 



[With 4 plates] 



When man came to the shores of our continent he was confronted 

 with an empire of great expanse and diversity. Animal life, in- 

 cluding the American Indian, secured its subsistence mostly from 

 native plants and animals. Our earliest settlers on the Atlantic coast 

 immediately began to clear the ground for cultivation, and as popu- 

 lation moved westward, the practice of cultivating the soil moved 

 likewise. It took many years, however, to reach the high plains of 

 western Kansas. Wheat production seemed not to reach its maximum 

 relative importance as a farm crop in the United States until it was 

 grown on soils formerly occupied by prairie vegetation. This crop 

 provided an ever-increasing supply of wheat flour for making bread, 

 but "man does not live by bread alone" — he needs a beefsteak oc- 

 casionally. If man today were like Nebuchadnezzar of old, it would 

 not be necessary for him to obtain by proxy his share of the vast 

 amount of energy produced in the vegetation of our giasslands 

 (Sampson, 1923) . We have advanced beyond the stage of our ancient 

 forefathers, however, and consequently we are confronted with the 

 necessity of growing livestock in order to provide a portion of our 

 daily diet. But livestock does not live by corn alone. It has long 

 been recognized that the grasslands of America and elsewhere are 

 indispensable to economic livestock production. 



If grasslands are as indispensable as we have been told, perhaps 

 it would be of interest to look into the origin of the prairies- Ac- 

 cording to authorities on the subject, many millions of years ago the 

 area now occupied by the Great Plains of North America was a vast 

 body of water (Harvey, 1908). The marine fossils embedded in 

 strata of limestone, mider what is now the Great Plains, attest this 

 fact. From the close of Carboniferous time to lov/er Cretaceous 

 time, the area was mostly land and occupied by certain tjq^es of ferns 

 and conifers (Gleason, 1922). This type of vegetation evidently 

 prevailed for many millions of years. During middle and late Cre- 

 taceous time the region was again invaded by a shallow sea, and 



' Reprinted by permission from Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science, vol. 52, No. 2, June 1949j 



363 



