Grasses J like sunlight, air, and mater, are taken for granted • 
For more than a generation scientists in the Department of Agriculture 
had been preaching to deaf ears the dangers of overgrazing. For thousands 
provided meat and clothing for ^ hundred^ generations ofylndians. Then 
came the ?j^hite man and in two generations the plains which had stood 
knee deep in grass were reduced to semideserti because overgrazing had 
destroyed the thick mat of sod that held the r8.in and melting snows and 
prevented erosion. With expanding population semiarid land ?jas plowed 
that should have been left as grazing land. Dust st orms and floods ^ 
the rapid run-off from denuded land, have taught us a lesson and erosion 
control work is now going ahead in earnest. In the work of revegetation^ 
grasses are of first import siice for these areas. We have many excellent 
native soil binders, grasses ?rf.th stout root stocks that formi a network 
below the surface. G-rasses from Asia and elsewhere are being tried also* 
Two from Siberia are making rapid progress in the Dakotas. 
Not only do grasses hold the soil, some of than built up the soil 
in the first place. One of the cord grasses (Spartina) has filled up 
miles of marshland in the Middle West , converting it into rich black 
prairie • Two others, one on the Atlantic Coast and the other on the 
Pacific^ have reclaimed many mile a of salt marsh . Much of rich tidewater 
Virginia was built up through the ages by cordgrass* 
of years our Great Plains maintained countless herds of bison, which 
