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Historically, agriculture has been the primary business on the Great Planes. This reliance upon farming and its output has caused significant problems over the years; especially as, in the beginning, the "Great American Desert" was not viewed as good farming land! The effort to populate the region with homestead farms was largely the work of the Railroad companies which attempted to attract both foreign and domestic settlers to the land; in an effort to do this, they strove to remake the image of the Plaines from the Desert to the Bread Basket.
One of the things which I found most interesting during the course of the lecture was the many theories that 'scientists' came up with in order to help make the land more hospitable to farmers; the one which stands out the most is the entire "Rain Follows the Plow" plan of cuitting the soil to unleash the water stored within it. At the same time these, lets be honest here, kooks were publishing those railroad-sponsered works, real botanists were striving to find crops which would grow well in a Plaines environment.
Although agriculture has never been the main focus of my interests, my Jeffersonian streak aside, I found this lecture rather interesting; if, for no other reason, it was fascinating to see the parrelles between farming on the Plaines and farming in my own home state.