[piasa]

Like the Great Plains during the dust bowl, due to the almost complete destruction of the deep-rooted prairie grass for farming in a region with very few trees.
Wwith no prairie grass to hold the soil in place, wind erosion devastated fields and sent everyone scurrying for California.
Instead of replanting portions of prairie, a solution was devised to plant hedgerows of Osage orange trees and windbreaks.

[PeterPrinciple]

Like the Great Plains during the dust bowl, due to the almost complete destruction of the deep-rooted prairie grass for farming in a region with very few trees.

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I would propose the destruction of the deep rooted prairie grass might have happened even if there was no farming.

It was a multiple year drought.