-On a quarter section in this country, no one
could’ve or should’ve been expected to make a living.”
* South Dakota
rancher
Clarence
Mortenson
A map of South
Dakota’s Spring View Township from 1890 shows a landscape plowed
and fenced off by homesteaders, lured by grandiose claims of what
the plains might produce. In reality, that wasn’t much, and the
grasslands and woody draws of western South Dakota suffered as
families tried to eke out a living in a land of little rain. A new
25-page booklet published by South Dakota State University profiles
one family that’s trying to restore a sprawling ranch. The
Mortenson Ranch: Cattle and Trees at Home on the Range applauds the
family’s attempts at restoration on a working ranch. The costs of
fencing and dropping the size of the cattle herd are offset, the
writers suggest, by new income sources, such as native-seed
collecting and charging people to hunt on the
ranch.
For a copy of the free, full-color,
illustrated booklet, write Bulletin Room-Ag Communications, South
Dakota State University, Box 2231, Brookings, SD 57007 or e-mail
brashiem@ur.sdstate.edu.
* Dustin
Solberg
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Putting grass back.
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