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The Spaniards called it the Llano Estacado or Staked Plains, I I I I I I I - economic and political forces as well -- the Indian Nations, the Westward Movement with its inducements to open and settle the Plains, the railroad-building era, free land to homesteaders, the vast public domain, the transition from open range for cattle grazing to fenced grain farming, the always uncertain "next-year" existence due to inadequate rainfall and streamflow for survival in farming. spread as this almost limitless tablela~d was, like a smooth rich layer of soil over the Rolling Prairies of western Texas. Early history left marks of 300 years of SpaniSh domination to 1800, followed by Anglo-American colonization, then revolution against I I I I I I I I I Mexico, then the Indian Wars, the Republic, annexation, Statehood, the Confederate State in the Civil War years, and re-entry into the Union in 1870. As these events swept across the whole of Texas, the great west Texas High Plains remained largely uninhabited except by Indian tribes, "...a vast sea of grass and home of great cattle ranches," as described in the Texas Almanac. Map IV-l shows the nine-county area of the Texas South Plains chosen for this dryland farming assessment. Early West Texas settlers in the post-Civil War period were dealing with the Cherokees and Comanches and extinguishing the vast buffalo herds at about the same time as Southwest Kansas settlers were dealing with the Cheyenne and Kiowa Tribes and their buffalo herds. The Indians were driven from this West Texas area by extensive campaigns in 1874-1875, and "...no Indians were seen on the Plains . . IV-2 I Arthur D IJttle,lnc I