High Plains Horticulture: A History

Preface

vii T he civilizing role of horticulture is part of the settlement story of the High Plains that has yet to be a subject of special consideration. The significance of this topic may be most readily explained by telling how it originated and developed in my own mind. In 1954, as an eighth grader, I was driven across the plains of Kansas, Colorado, and Wyoming. After spending the summer in a primitive cabin in a remote location in southeastern Wyoming, I took my first train ride alone, from Laramie across the plains of Nebraska on to Chicago and the East Coast. Even at that young age, I had found the High Plains awesome and exhilarating , not lonesome or bleak, and I hoped someday to put down roots there. While attending university in the Midwest, I had the good fortune to be able to spend holidays and summers in Colorado. I remember vividly the first welcoming whiffs of sagebrush, as well as the oases of small towns and farmsteads, as I drove west through Kansas or Nebraska. Indeed, my academic interest in French rural history, both civic and ecclesiastical, seemed perfectly p Preface viii Preface compatible with what I saw on the High Plains. After moving from southern California to Wyoming in 1971, at Rock Springs, then a booming energy town and not an apparent garden spot, my first question was: Where are the trees? The answer, invariably, came back: none of us thought we were going to stay here very long, so we did not plant trees. Some years later, as founding president of the Wyoming Community Foundation, I became convinced that building endowments that would last forever and planting trees that would survive the harsh climate were two sides of the same coin: creating permanent communities. Among the Community Foundation’s first grants were monies for the purchase of trees for several Wyoming towns. Furthermore, at the urging of Wyoming’s then first lady, Jane Sullivan, the Community Foundation supported a number of projects and activities to improve community appearances. The premise, of course, was that attractive communities not only help increase community pride but also help attract desirable new businesses. In the summer of 2001, almost by chance, I learned about the United States Department of Agriculture’s Cheyenne Horticultural Field Station that had occupied a once-treeless 2,200-acre plot just west of that city. Established by act of Congress in 1928, its mission was to aid horticultural development in all aspects throughout the High Plains. In 1972 that mission shifted to grasslands research, reflecting a stronger commitment to ranching and related forage crops. Now efforts are ongoing to restore the station’s arboretum, reflecting the interests of an increasingly urbanized population. The Horticultural Field Station thus remains institutionally convenient to our story. Contrary to lingering public opinion—especially strong where I live—that nothing grows where drought is ever-present, temperatures are extreme, and the wind rarely stops, I have had the privilege of cultivating my own vegetable and fruit garden, with surprisingly good results over a number of years. That is not to say that this is a how-to guide, although today’s High Plains gardener will learn, at least generally, what grew in the past and what did not. Nor is this a study of commodity farming and open-range ranching, although both are important because they complement horticulture and sometimes compete with it for water. Nor again is it about horticulture as secular religion, although horticulture as restorative remains admittedly attractive as it has throughout history, most notably since the patricians of ancient Rome first cultivated their own gardens. The reader is forewarned that this study purports to be a cultural, not a scientific or technical, treatment of horticulture, although I hope it is well-grounded on both the science and the applications of science practiced during the respective historical periods. Preface ix The reader should also know at the start that the notion regarding the civilizing influence of horticulture on the High Plains derives from my study and admiration of the learned French agriculturists of the eighteenth century. Actually, one need go no further than defer to one of their correspondents, our own Thomas Jefferson, overseer of the Louisiana Purchase, of which the High Plains were part. It is well-known that Jefferson was an enlightened farmer, that he viewed farming and, by extension, horticulture to be the...