Wild Free and Happy Sample 32

[Note: This is the thirty-second sample from my rough draft of a far from finished new book, Wild, Free, & Happy.  I don’t plan on reviewing more books for a while.  My blog is home to reviews of 202 books, and you are very welcome to explore them.  The Search field on the right side will find words in the full contents of all rants and reviews, if you are interested in specific authors, titles, or subjects.] 

Plant Domestication

The domestication of crop plants is an enormous subject.  It has enabled and accelerated a long sequence of unfortunate unforeseen consequences over the centuries.  Of course, the same could be said for the domestication of animals.  If domestication had never occurred, life in the twenty-first century would look nothing like the world outside your window.  There would be no windows.

Our population would not be zooming down the fast lane to eight billion, nine billion….  We would not be helpless sitting ducks today, standing in the path of an onrushing out of control climate shit storm.  Wild folks would have never conjured techno-nightmares like automobiles, cell phones, cities, nuclear bombs, or pesticides.  Agriculture produces megatons of surplus food, which enables societies to feed and clothe herds of nerds, who are highly skilled at maximizing unsustainability in every imaginable way.

Agriculture was not an amazing invention created by a brilliant mad scientist.  For four million years, every hominin who had more than two brain cells clearly understood that plants grew from seeds.  Agriculture was not an awesomely cool fad that spread like wildfire around the world.  As long as wild foods were adequate, it would have been ridiculous to deliberately shift to tedious, miserable, backbreaking work. 

When hunters have an unlucky day, they can lose a day’s work.  When farmers have bad luck, they can lose more than a year’s hard work, and have no safety net to catch their fall.  Crops can be zapped by drought, deluge, late frost, early frost, fire, storms, plant disease, enemies, wildlife, insects, and so on.  High rewards came with high risks.

Kat Anderson described how hunter-gatherers in California “tended” the wild landscape to encourage the growth of wild plants that were useful to them.  They didn’t strip the living green skin off the land, pulverize the naked soil, and plant seeds.  That would have been ecologically insane.  They had no need to do that.  They had plenty to eat because their time proven culture was well adapted to their land, and because they hadn’t stumbled into the trap of domestication.

Mark Nathan Cohen wrote an important book that described how agriculture emerged independently in several different regions.  It was a jarring transformation for humankind.  Hominins had been hunters for four million years, a highly successful strategy.  Until 10,000 years ago, everything on the menu everywhere was wild foods.  By 2,000 years ago, most of humankind depended on food produced on farms.

Preceding this shift, hunters had spread around the world.  They had gotten very good at killing large game, and a number of megafauna species had been driven into extinction.  Also, as the ice age weakened, the climate got warmer, and forests expanded into steppe and tundra regions.  Forest was not prime habitat for herds of horses, reindeer, and mammoths.  These herds shrank or dispersed.  So, the menus had to be rewritten to include more offerings of stuff like waterfowl, fish, crustaceans, small reptiles, mollusks, and plant foods. 

Barry Cunliffe noted that the recovering forests of Europe were home to more solitary game like aurochs, boars, elk, deer, and small animals.  The total biomass of these forest animals was only 20 to 30 percent of the biomass of the tundra herds they replaced.  Less meat led to a significantly smaller population.  It was easier to survive in locations close to coastlines, lakes, rivers, and wetlands, where a year round supply of a wide variety of foods could be gathered.

This new way of living apparently worked well enough for a while.  No wild plants suitable for agriculture were domesticated in early Europe.  At the time, much of the continent was still forest.  The primary food of civilizations is grains.  Grains are produced by grass species like wheat, oats, barley, and so on.  For this reason, large scale agriculture did not emerge in forests or jungles. 

Meanwhile, to the east, in the awesome grasslands of the Fertile Crescent, there was so much wild plant food that some groups had the option of giving up the nomadic life and settling down in delicious locations.  Cohen noted that the seeds of wild wheat (emmer and einkorn) and wild barley provided storable starch (calories).  Storable protein was provided by peas, beans, lentils, and vetches.  In North America, the primary starch was corn, and beans were the main source of plant protein.  Grasslands were also excellent places to hunt.

Cohen noted that the practice of agriculture migrated from its birthplace in the Fertile Crescent.  It moved into southeastern Europe between 7000 and 5000 B.C.  It then spread along the Mediterranean coast, and into the Danube river watershed.  At the time Europe was already inhabited by scattered communities of hunter-gatherers. 

Whether agriculture primarily spread through Europe by migration or diffusion is controversial (probably both).  In Australia, it spread by migration, when outsiders from Britain brought their dirty habit with them.  In North America, it apparently spread by diffusion, as corn and beans spent centuries gradually making a long pilgrimage from Mesoamerica to Ontario.

Diana Muir wrote an environmental history of New England, from the ice age to today.  On the tundra, folks hunted mastodons, horses, bison, and four species of mammoths.  There were sabertooth cats, giant bears, giant beavers, and musk oxen.  As the climate warmed, forests spread northward, gradually displacing tundra.  The elk, moose, and tropical primates managed to survive.  As megafauna declined, folks hunted for deer, bear, beaver, moose, waterfowl, turkeys, and heath hens.  Rivers had huge runs of salmon, shad, and alewives.

Eventually, the seeds of corn (maize), squash, and beans reached New England.  Tribes that got addicted could produce far more food per acre, and support a larger population.  Their new diet had nutrient deficiencies which had health effects. 

I’ve already mentioned ideas from Mark Nathan Cohen’s book, The Food Crisis in Prehistory, in which the archaeologist and anthropologist explored what drove the transition to agriculture.  Twenty-two years later, he published Health & the Rise of Civilization, which extensively examined how health declined in agricultural societies.  The healthiest people were the hunter-gatherers who dined on large game.

The shift to agriculture took a toll.  Teotihuacan was a city located not far from today’s Mexico City.  It was home to a culture of pyramid builders.  At its prime around A.D. 500, it had about 125,000 people, and was the biggest city in the world.  Cohen wrote that it had very high rates of malnutrition, stunted growth, deciduous tooth hypoplasia, and infant and child mortality.  I’ll have much more to say about human health in a later chapter. 

Anyway, there is strength in numbers, and farmers trumped hunters.  In any region that was suitable for the agriculture of the day, the hunters were in danger.  A dozen healthy, well-nourished hunters were unlikely to triumph against 100 malnourished corn farmers with bad teeth.  Corn typically depleted soil fertility in a few years, so clearing new fields was an ongoing necessity.

Farmers were not friendly new neighbors.  Over time they were more like an uprising, a steamroller.  Muir described how the corn powered Iroquois gathered momentum over time, pushing out the tribes of Algonquin hunters.  Cunliffe wrote that when agriculture moved close to your home sweet home, you had four choices: (1) exterminate them, (2) take up the dirty habit, (3) flee, or (4) be overrun.

Mesopotamia

James Scott, a political scientist, studied the dawn of agriculture in southern Mesopotamia, because it was the birthplace of the earliest genuine states — hierarchical societies with rulers and tax collectors, sustained by a mix of farming and herding.  The primary food of almost every early state was wheat, barley, or rice.  Taxes were paid with grain, because it was easier to harvest, transport, and store than foods that were more perishable.  An entire field of grain ripened at the same time, which enabled one sweep harvesting.

Today, southern Mesopotamia is largely a treeless desert, and many assume that it always has been.  Actually, it used to be wetlands, a cornucopia of wild foods, a paradise for hunters and gatherers.  There was so much to eat that it was possible to quit wandering and live in settled communities.  Edible plants included club rush, cattails, water lily, and bulrush.  They also ate tortoises, fish, mollusks, crustaceans, birds, waterfowl, small mammals, and migrating gazelles.  The ecosystem was generous, and life was good.

In this region, communities of sedentary hunter-gatherers began appearing by maybe 12,000 B.C.  The first evidence of domestication appears around 9000 B.C.  Then, it took another four thousand years (160 generations!) before agricultural villages appeared.  The first states emerged around 3100 B.C.  In the Middle East, it does not appear that early cultivation was encouraged by declining availability of wild plant and animal foods.  Contrary to common beliefs, in Mesopotamia, cultivation seems to have emerged in regions of abundance, not scarcity.

In the early days, there was no need for irrigation.  Stream banks and river deltas were covered with alluvium — a moist and highly fertile deposit of clay, silt, sand, and gravel that was delivered by annual floods.  It was a soft and loose soil that was ready for sowing.  So, in addition to the wild grains they enjoyed, it was fairly easy to sow seeds in the fresh deposits of alluvium.

Scott mentioned archaeologist Hans Nissen, who studied the ancient Near East.  Nissen noted that for quite a while, the climate had been wet and warm.  With adequate rains, abundant water moved through the streams and rivers.  The Tigris and Euphrates watershed emptied into the Persian Gulf.  Nissen measured the accumulated sediments on the floor of the Gulf.  Thicker layers of organic matter indicated times when lots of water was moving lots of silt.  This study illuminated climate patterns.

Prior to roughly 3500 B.C., so much water flowed into the Gulf that its water level was 10 feet (3 m) higher than it is today.  The north shore of the Gulf expanded quite a ways into southern Mesopotamia.  Much of the region was then wetlands, and folks resided on islands.  It was a paradise for happy wild people — plenty to eat year round.

But then, climate trends gradually shifted toward cooler and dryer.  Less rain led to lower water tables.  The Gulf’s shoreline retreated.  Wetlands began drying out.  It became possible to plant seeds on the highly fertile, newly exposed soil.  For a while the alluvial soils were a sponge that held enough moisture that crops could be grown without irrigation, but this situation was temporary.

Nissen noted that wild grains still grow in Mesopotamia.  Today, in remote locations, folks can gather two or more quarts (or liters) of grain in an hour — a decent supply of calories for minimal effort.  On the other hand, cultivated grain grown in irrigated fields can produce far higher yields, sometimes two or three harvests per year.

Here is where the domestication of wheat played an important role.  Wild wheat grass readily drops its ripe seeds, which maximizes reproductive potential — evolution’s goal.  But this minimizes efficient harvesting.  Lots of seeds drop to the ground and are not collected.  So, over time, selective breeding favored plants that retained their seeds. 

Also, wild wheat seeds are coated with hard husks, which reduce the risk of premature germination.  Farmers have to remove these husks.  This can be accomplished by pounding or roasting, but then the seeds are less likely to germinate.  So, over time, selective breeding favored plants that produced seeds having less troublesome husks.

Annual grain yield was important, but effective storage was equally vital.  The primary objective of agriculture was not to produce millions of morbidly obese rats, or impressive heaps of stinky rotten wheat.  Grain was best stored in large closed vessels of fired clay. 

Gold is dense and shiny, but you can’t eat it.  Its only value is when you find odd people with vivid imaginations who believe that a shiny yellow stone is something of immense value.  Stored wheat, on the other hand, is something you can eat, food that can sustain your survival.  A full granary is truly precious to folks who enjoy being alive, it is a genuine treasure.

History is clear on one thing — stored treasure is fantastically tempting to ambitious hard-nosed folks untroubled by morals, like Vikings, Mongols, or billionaires.  Tacitus, writing in A.D. 98, described the wild German tribes.  “They actually think it tame and stupid to acquire by the sweat of toil what they might win by their blood.”

What may be the world’s oldest story was found etched on clay tablets in southern Mesopotamia — the Epic of Gilgamesh.  It’s the saga of slimy King Gilgamesh who clear-cut ancient forests, triggered massive floods and erosion, and built the city of Uruk.

Nissen spent a lot of time digging up stuff in Uruk, which is now scruffy ancient ruins surrounded by a barren brown wasteland.  [LOOK]  In the days of its glory, was a highly advanced place.  Nissen called this era “the beginning of early high civilization.”  It had writing, large artworks, and monumental architecture.  Gilgamesh built a wall around Uruk that enclosed an area of 1,360 acres (5.5 km²).  The wall included at least 900 semicircular towers.

Around the world, throughout history, it is no coincidence that settlements with stored treasure (especially granaries) have commonly been surrounded by walls, moats, palisades, and so on.  Alfred Crosby wrote a tragi-comical history of the evolution of weaponry, from stones to hydrogen bombs.  Many, many centuries were devoted to a tireless arms race — ongoing efforts to use new tricks for destroying walls, and new countermeasures for defending the stored treasure.

OK, back to Mesopotamia.  As the climate got cooler and dryer, rain decreased, river flows decreased, and the water level of the Gulf dropped.  Less water was available for irrigation.  Plus, as river flows dropped lower, their channels dug deeper into the soil.  This caused even more water to be drawn away from the surrounding land.

In the driest regions, agriculture could not survive without irrigation.  Over time, an enormous canal system was built in Mesopotamia.  The unintended consequence of this brilliant technological masterpiece was catastrophe.  Regular irrigation led to salt buildup in the soil (salinization), which rendered it permanently infertile, killing the golden goose.

Salt-nuked cropland had to be abandoned, forcing folks to concentrate in more urban settlements.  With more people crammed together, conflict levels increased.  To avoid social meltdown, conflicts needed to be brought under control.  This need encouraged the further intensification of civilization — powerful leaders, laws, enforcers, obedient tax-paying citizens, and hard-working slaves.

Wild Free and Happy Sample 22

[Note: This is the twenty-second sample from my rough draft of a far from finished new book, Wild, Free, & Happy.  I don’t plan on reviewing more books for a while.  My blog is home to reviews of 201 books, and you are very welcome to explore them.  The Search field on the right side will find words in the full contents of all rants and reviews, if you are interested in specific authors, titles, or subjects.] 

Mother Grassland

Hominins originated on the tropical savannahs of Mother Africa, about four million years ago.  Since then, we have evolved, gotten too clever, colonized six continents, driven many megafauna species extinct, maximized food production, and exploded in numbers.  The human saga has been a unique experiment in living that is entirely out of the pattern of all other animals.  In a fantastic joyride of blissful ignorance, we have unintentionally succeeded in rubbishing the planet.  The bedrock foundation of this grand adventure is our deep and enduring relationship with grassland ecosystems.

Grasslands are sprawling green arrays of solar energy collectors that transform sunbeams into carbohydrates.  These nutrients migrate from species to species, up and down the food chain, and enable the existence of the family of life, including large herbivores, the preferred food for prehistoric people.  For the effort invested, they provided the biggest jackpots of meat.  Our intense desire for these animals, and our ongoing dependence on them, guided our evolution from hominins to humans. 

It’s important to understand that herds of large herbivores do not usually reside in forests or jungles.  Large body size is an advantage on grasslands, but can be a disadvantage in dense woodlands.  In terms of vegetation, forests contain much more plant biomass than grasslands, but most of it is elevated out of the reach of hungry herbivores. 

For herd critters, grasslands are the best place to dine on high quality greenery, hang out with friends and relatives, and enjoy a wonderful life of fresh air, travel, and adventure.  Each year, grasslands produce much more new biomass per acre than forests, and it’s conveniently located close to the ground.  Consequently, grasslands are home to far more large animals.  I would expect that most mammalian megafauna species originated in grasslands.

Grasslands, grazers, and large carnivores coevolved for many millions of years.  Much more recently, hominins pushed into the game, and began competing with the carnivores.  By and by, the clever tropical primates, with their terrifying weaponry, expanded into every continent, migrating from grassland to grassland, hunting, feasting, singing, and dancing.

As expanding wild cultures perfected their hunting skills, large game became harder to find, and attention shifted toward smaller animals, birds, shellfish, and so on.  We kept bumping into limits, and some cultures began to lurch toward the domestication of animals and/or plants.

Over time, persistent control freaks eventually succeeded in domesticating some wild herbivore species.  Instead of spending their time chasing increasingly scarce wild critters all over the countryside, they could selectively breed passive dimwitted animals, confine them to limited pastures, and conveniently exploit them in every imaginable way.  Jared Diamond noted that the five most important domesticates were horses, cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs.  All five were domesticated on the grasslands of Eurasia by 4000 B.C.  No mammals were domesticated south of the equator in Africa, humankind’s ancestral homeland.

In some cultures, foragers gathered the energy-dense seeds of wild grasses.  Over time they encouraged these grasses to grow in more locations by sowing their seeds.  Foragers had a natural tendency to gather the seeds that were more convenient to reap, and leave behind seeds that readily fell to the ground.  For example, when wild wheat is ripe, the heads shatter, releasing all of their seeds.  This natural dispersal promotes the survival of the species. 

Year after year, foragers brought home seeds from plants that were (1) less prone to shattering, (2) ripened at the same time, and (3) produced larger seeds.  Over centuries, the seeds they planted became significantly different from wild seeds.  Today, more than half of the calories consumed by humankind come from three grasses: rice, wheat, and corn (maize).  Other popular grasses include oats, barley, millet, sorghum, sugar cane, and bamboo. 

I’ll have more to say about plant and animal domestication in later chapters.  Here, I just want to point out that some hunter-gatherer cultures transitioned into farmers and herders.  Their diet continued to major in grassland plant foods and large herbivores, but it was shifting toward domesticated varieties.  What remained constant was the continued dependence of many cultures on grassland ecosystems.

Graham Harvey, a grass worshipping wordsmith, concluded that humans are essentially creatures of the grass, like hyenas and horses.  Deep inside, we still are.  Long ago we lost our ability to quickly scamper up trees, and leap from branch to branch.  We evolved into bipedal critters fine-turned for walking, running, and surviving in grasslands.

Nomadic Freedom

In the good old days, bands of nomadic hunter-gathers spent their lives wandering across vast grasslands.  It was a way of life that majored in freedom.  Our ancestors were as free as every other wild critter.  No rent, money, landlords, soldiers, slaves, taxes, kings, police, or smart phones.  Indeed, we evolved as nomads, and remained nomads for almost the entire four million year hominin saga.  For hunters to stop roaming, and put down roots, would have been very risky.  Their best option was to follow the herds, which never stopped wandering in search of grass.

Bruce Chatwin was fascinated by the freedom of nomadic life, and the deep human need to always keep moving.  He was born in England in 1940, and spent his entire life in an intensely overpopulated world, boiling with nonstop conflict and bad craziness.  Industrial civilization tends not to inspire a profound sense of joy, wonderment, and celebration among the billions of anxious stressed-out taxpayers born in captivity.

He mentioned a Hungarian epidemiologist who had studied the history of infectious diseases.  The man concluded that humans were not meant to settle down.  Whenever you confine dense populations of humans and other animals in a fixed location, poop happens — lots of poop — excrement all over the place.  Drinking water develops a crappy flavor and aroma.  Before long, pathogens rush through the crowds, weeding out the weak and unlucky — a gold rush for grave diggers.  Nomads live in small bands, and rarely crap in the same place twice.  Their water tastes like water, and their lifestyle is not a magnet for infectious diseases.  Freedom is good for your health.  We’ll take a closer look at disease in later pages.

Today, during the brief era of fossil fuel mania, developed societies can temporarily discourage epidemics by implementing complex, expensive, energy-guzzling systems for waste treatment and water purification.  In wealthy societies, antibiotics are currently controlling the spread of many pathogens, but the benefit of these wonder drugs can only be temporary, because pathogens will never stop mutating into drug-resistant forms.  We are approaching the post-antibiotic era.  Whistling while he works, the Grim Reaper is sharpening his scythe.  Breaking all the laws of nature has harsh consequences, and Big Mama Nature has a deep regard for justice.

Finally, nomadic cultures enjoyed great freedom as long as they remained hunter-gatherers.  These cultures were essentially egalitarian.  There was no hierarchy of power, everyone was equal.  Unequal status was toxic to group cohesion.  Folks who became big headed were a serious problem that had to be promptly resolved.  It was vital that folks in small bands cooperated, shared, and respected one another.

When nomadic cultures shifted from hunting wild animals to herding enslaved critters, they entered a path that led to ugly destinations.  Nothing more reliably turns humans into tyrants, conquerors, egomaniacs, and spectacular idiots than cultures that define personal status in terms of accumulated wealth — personal property.  The lad with 100 cattle looked down on the fellow with 10.  This mindset sparked an explosion of craziness — furious empires of Mongols and Huns spilling rivers of blood.  Status mania continues to this day, but on a dramatically larger scale.  We are not living at the zenith of freedom, or anywhere near it.

Grassland Basics

In the dry land regions of Earth, there are four primary biomes: grassland, forest, desert, and tundra.  Precipitation is a key factor.  Forests and jungles need to receive at least 30 inches (76 cm) per year.  Deserts receive less than 10 inches (25 cm).  Grasslands fit in the middle, 10 to 30 inches.  Grasslands have two seasons, productive and dormant.  In warm climates, they are dormant during the dry season, and recover when the rains return.  In temperate climates, they are dormant during the frosty months, and green when the soil thaws.

Grasslands have evolved to survive in arid climates.  Grasses can live where most other plant species cannot.  There are three basic categories of grasslands: savannah, steppe, and prairie.  [MAP]  Savannahs are grasslands speckled with some trees and brush.  Steppes are called shortgrass prairies, because most plants are less than one foot (30 cm) tall.  Prairies are wetter, and produce tall grass, which can grow up to 13 feet (4 m) high — a horse can disappear in it.

Graham Harvey noted that grasses first evolved about 70 million years ago.  There are now an estimated 12,000 grass species, and they grow in many temperate and tropical regions.  Grasslands are communities of different plants — primarily grasses, mixed with a wide variety of sedges and leafy forbs (wild flowers and herbs). 

These mixed communities maximize the capture of solar energy, make better use of soil resources, and create rich humus.  Humus boosts fertility, and helps retain moisture.  Some plants convert atmospheric nitrogen into a form that is essential for all plants and animals.  Others are good at retrieving essential mineral nutrients.

Following an intense disturbance, grasslands can recover in 5 to 10 years — far faster than a wrecked forest.  Evolution has done a remarkable job of fine-tuning grasslands for rugged durability.  They can go dormant during dry times, and revive when rains return.  They can survive extended droughts and six month winters.  They can recover more easily after wildfires because only a third of grassland biomass is above ground, and vulnerable to flames. 

Beneath the surface, the invisible portion of grasslands is astonishing.  Many plants send roots deep into the ground, to acquire moisture and nutrients.  Some grow as deep as 32 feet (10 m).  In some regions, densely interwoven roots created a thick sod that pioneer farmers cut into bricks that were used to build homes and schools.  Because of unreliable precipitation, trees and shrubs often die before they can grow roots deep enough to tap dependable water.

The seeds of many grassland species can remain dormant for an extended period, until appropriate conditions return, and inspire them to germinate.  Some seeds can survive a ride through an herbivore’s gut and remain fertile, enabling the colonization of new locations.

In 1872, Kansas senator John James Ingalls celebrated the power of grass.  He wrote: “Grass is the forgiveness of nature — her constant benediction.  …Streets abandoned by traffic become grass-grown like rural lanes, and are obliterated.  Forests decay, harvests perish, flowers vanish, but grass is immortal.  …The primary form of food is grass.  Grass feeds the ox: the ox nourishes man: man dies and goes to grass again; and so the tide of life with everlasting repetition, in continuous circles, moves endlessly on and upward, and in more senses than one, all flesh is grass.”

Grassland

I grew up across the street from a hardwood forest in Michigan.  When my family visited relatives in North Dakota, the vast wide open grasslands seemed so dry, empty, sad.  I just read Richard Manning’s book Grassland, and it was most illuminating — every chapter was rich with information that was new to me, and important to understand.  This book changed the way I think. 

There are four biomes in the ecosphere: tundra, forest, grassland, and desert.  Grasslands typically receive 10 to 30 inches of rain per year (20 to 60 cm).  Less than 10 inches is desert, and more than 30 is forest.  Generally speaking, there are two types of grasslands: tall grass (wetter) and short grass (dryer). 

Almost all of the original tall grass ecosystem in the US has been replaced with corn (maize), a domesticated tall grass that’s a magnet for government subsidy checks.  More of the original short grass ecosystem has survived, but much of it has been replaced with wheat, a domesticated short grass that generates better income than grazing. 

The process of converting grassland into cropland erased countless species of flora and fauna.  Healthy, diverse, soil-building wild ecosystems were replaced by soil-destroying, chemically-soaked, energy-guzzling monocultures of exotic plants — temporarily.  Today we beat the soil, and tomorrow the soil will beat us.  Plow cultures can never win in the long run.

Manning believes that climate change provided our hominid ancestors with a key to success.  An era of rising temperatures shrank the forests, and expanded the grasslands of sub-Saharan Africa, much to our benefit.  Grasslands produce far more meat than forests, and creatures that walk upright, and are taller than the grass, enjoy important advantages. 

Humans migrated into the Americas during the last Ice Age, when the sea level dropped, and the Beringia land bridge emerged.  Beringia was grassland.  Somewhere around the time of this migration, a number of large mammals went extinct, but not all of them.  Survivors included the bison, elk, deer, moose, grizzly bear, black bear, caribou, and antelope.  With the exception of the antelope, all of them migrated from Asia, and had long experience with living cautiously near humans.  The indigenous antelopes survived because they could run at speeds up to 70 miles per hour (112 kph), far faster than hungry spear-chuckers.  Wooly mammoths were not so quick.

Prior to the European invasion, this new cast of characters did a beautiful job of coevolving with the grassland ecosystem of the western US.  Manning suspects that there were about 50 million bison and 10 million elk in 1492.  The bison and elk were brilliantly able to feed themselves, fend off excessive predation, and enjoy satisfying lives — without fences, hay trucks, feed troughs, watering tanks, hormones, antibiotics, human managers, or huge government subsidies.

Today, the plains support 45.5 million cattle on the same land.  In the nineteenth century, western ranching tycoons began raising large herds of short-horned cattle from northern Europe.  The imported animals were accustomed to a moist climate, moderate summers, mild winters, and a diet that majored in forbs (broad leafed flowering plants).  But on the western plains, the climate was arid, summers were sizzling, winters were blast-freezers, and the vegetation majored in grasses, not forbs.  Frigid winters in 1885-86 and 1906-07 killed 50 to 75 percent of the cattle on the high plains — while the snow-frosted bison remained warm, well-fed, and secretly amused at the misfortune of the hapless newcomers.

Americans also imported thousands of species of exotic plants.  Cheatgrass is nearly nutrient-free, except in the spring, and it often wipes out and replaces nutritious indigenous vegetation.  Spotted knapweed spreads rapidly, and can suppress 95 percent of the grass.  Grazing animals won’t eat it.  Nor will they nibble on sulfur cinquefoil or leafy spurge.  Leafy spurge can completely dominate a landscape, reducing it to a biological desert.  Wildlife can die from malnutrition in places cursed with an abundance of exotics.  Killing invasive exotic vegetation is prohibitively expensive.  They are here to stay, and their plan is to spread.

To add insult to injury, we plowed up the tall grass prairies and planted corn, 70 percent of which is used to feed animals.  Corn makes cattle sick, but it fattens them for market faster, and makes a lot of rich people richer.  Today’s industrial corn production destroys the soil, pollutes the groundwater, encourages flooding, creates coastal dead zones, and countless other serious problems.  It’s not a process with a long term future.

The billionaire Ted Turner tried a different approach.  He bought the 110,000 acre Flying D ranch in Montana, sold off the cattle, tore down most of the fences, and brought in bison.  The bison cost half as much to raise, and sold for twice as much — while the health of the land improved at the same time.  Might there be an important lesson here?

Manning serves us story after story — the downside of horse domestication, the extermination of the buffalo, the ethics of animal rights thinkers, prairie restoration projects, the disasters caused by railroads and steel plows, the Dust Bowl, the fabulous damage caused by wheat farming on the Palouse Prairie, and on and on.  It’s an intriguing collection of ideas.

Here’s the bottom line.  Prior to 1492, the plains Indians had learned how to live with nature in a relatively balanced manner.  The Europeans, on the other hand, tried to manage the American ecosystems to work just like Europe.  Unfortunately, the European design was a time-proven disaster in Europe, and everywhere else it was tried.  The moral of the story is that winners learn how to live with nature, and losers try to control it and exploit it.  Losers repeatedly crash and burn, and they display a remarkable inability to learn from their mistakes.

All of the venerable visionaries of the west are unanimous in predicting a future of change.  Peak Cheap Energy will put the forks to industrial agriculture, and many other things.  Vast expanses of monoculture corn will follow the wooly mammoths — as will generous government subsidy checks, and maybe the government, too.  The Ogallala aquifer will be empty before long.  Grassland just may have a bright tomorrow.  Let’s hope so.

Manning, Richard, Grassland, Viking, New York, 1995.