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<br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br /> <br />002243 <br /> <br />SOUTHWEST KANSAS <br />The similarities in history, physiography, and cultural devel- <br />opment between this far corner of Kansas and the South Plains of <br />Texas are striking, but there are three important differences <br />which make for interesting contrasts in the intensive analysis of <br />the impacts of irrigation in the two areas. The 14 counties of <br />Southwest Kansas are crossed west to east by two rivers, the <br />Arkansas and Cimmaron, and geographically these watercourses <br />create conditions for some recharge of the Ogallala Formation <br />through surrounding sand hills. while the aquifer beneath the Texas <br />South Plains has essentially no recharge. Second, the Southwest <br />Kansas counties are distinctly rural and sparsely populated; the <br />nine Texas counties have metropolitan Lubbock in their exact g80- <br />graphic center, thereby adding an economic and social diversity not <br />found in Southwest Kansas. Third, the major farm crops make for <br />different economies. In Texas it is cotton, in Kansas it is wheat. <br />Before irrigation came to the High Plains of western Kansas, <br />the agricultural economy was the same vast open cattle range that <br />extended north to the Canadian border and south to Mexico. After <br />the Civil War, the grassland was fenced, the soil plowed, and the <br />land began to be farmed. The great crop was wheat, millions of <br />acres of wheat, and the area was called the Nation's bread-basket. <br />Cattle ranching remained for many decades, but it was essentially <br />a one-crop wheat economy. Soil, climate and 18 to 22 inches of <br />rainfall annually combined to produce good yields in this dry1and <br />area in most years. <br /> <br />II-7 <br /> <br />Arthur D Little.lnc <br />