A Garden or a Desert?

Lewis and Clark's Assessment of the American West

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NRCS Exhibit: A Garden or a Desert?

View the NRCS Exhibit that focuses on the ideas in this article. The exhibit will be appearing at Lewis & Clark Bicentennial activities across the nation.

Painting With Soil: The Lewis and Clark Expedition

Two hundred years ago, Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and their “Corps of Discovery” set off up the Missouri River into western Montana and to the Pacific Ocean. During the 2003 – 2006 bicentennial observance of this journey, many Americans and others from around the world will retrace the steps of these intrepid explorers and rediscover the wonders they first described. The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) plans to celebrate these discoveries again through displays and demonstrations along the Lewis and Clark Trail, describing the emphasis that the Lewis and Clark Expedition gave to exploring and describing soils, vegetation, and landscapes in the West, and the soils’ link to the landscape and potential for the future. At the turn of the 19th century, the relatively young United States was growing fast in population and at the same time, there was concern that the farmland, then in production in the Southern and Northern states, might not be enough to sustain the nation. The new immigrants from Europe were looking to the West and curious as to the value of that land for agriculture. Was the West a garden or a desert? The French explorers from the Northwest described a garden. The Spanish in the Southwest described a desert.

Lewis and Clark had specific instructions from President Jefferson to report on factors that would reveal the potential of this vast new land for agricultural purposes. The President wanted the explorers to report on "the soil and face of the country, its growth and vegetable production, especially those not of the United States; the animals of the country generally, and especially those not known in the United States.” After the first winter of the Expedition in 1805 (Ft. Mandan, ND), Lewis and Clark sent samples of soil, minerals, and plants and other items back to the President. Their journals contain the first detailed descriptions of the soils, vegetation, and animals native to an area that now spans 18 different states. Several other members of the expedition recorded information on the soils they encountered, including Sergeant Charles Floyd, the only member of the expedition who did not survive the journey.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition members evaluated soils on the basis of the number and kinds of plants and animals that the soils supported and on the basis of soil properties and qualities. Searching through the journals and letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the NRCS soil scientists found descriptions of soil properties and qualities similar to what they collect today. Spelling aside, the Lewis and Clark descriptions coincided with descriptions of soils that are recorded modern soil surveys today.

Soils most suitable for agriculture were described as dark, friable (“mellow”) loams, that were not too steep or rocky for cultivation, and were deep or very deep to hard rock (greater than 6 feet or a man’s length). The worst soils for agriculture were sandy or excessively clayey, rocky, hard, steep and broken, shallow or very shallow, and/or too dry or too wet. The National Cooperative Soil Survey in the United States has similar standards today.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition described that the “ best” soils extended from Wood River to north-central Montana (near the Missouri River Breaks) and are in certain areas west and/or south of those breaks, including a valley near Helena, Montana; the area around Three Forks, Montana; bottom land along the Jefferson River, Gallatin County, Montana; Weippe Prairie, Clearwater County, Idaho; the area at the junction of the North Fork and main branch of the Clearwater River in Idaho; plains near Clarkston, Washington; and the valley between the Coast and Cascade Ranges in Washington and Oregon.

The “worst soils” for agriculture were in the “desert” areas at the Missouri River Breaks; in clayey areas along the Marias River; in a “mere Desart” in southern Cascade County, Montana; in clayey areas on “poor sterile” uplands along the Jefferson River, Gallatin County, Montana; on a “Sandy plain or desert” in Beaverhead County, Montana; and in the “high desert mountains” along the Lolo Trail in Idaho. These areas were described as having have little, if any, game.

The areas identified as best suited to agricultural settlement were described as extending from Wood River to the Platte River, the area at the junction of the North Fork and main branch of the Clearwater River, and the valley between the Coast and Cascade Ranges. Lewis and Clark noted that a scarcity of timber could hinder agricultural settlement in the area extending from the Platte River to Fort Mandan, but Lewis indicated that this scarcity was caused by fire (set and managed by Indian tribes throughout the West rather than by inferior soil quality). For both Lewis and Clark, the extent and height of the prairie grasses and the population of deer, elk, buffalo, and other wildlife indicated the fertility of the soils in this area and in the buffalo country in northwestern North Dakota and in Montana.

Thomas Jefferson’s view of the scarcity of timber on the prairies is indicated in his report to Congress on November 14, 1803: “The land is represented as too rich for the growth of forest trees.” Though fire rather than superior soil quality is a more likely cause for the scarcity of trees, Jefferson is correct in his assumption that the grassland soils along the Missouri are more fertile than the forested soils. After viewing the soils, Lewis and Clark considered the grasslands at least as fertile as the forested areas.

Reports coming out of the Expedition excited Americans. In truth, the reports were that the West was both a desert and a potential garden. Farmers in New England and the South left rocky or depleted farms to settle large western farms with rich, prairie soil. The Louisiana Territory offered vast amounts of land, much of it fertile and perfect for growing wheat, corn, and cotton.

Jefferson’s charge to Lewis and Clark reflected the need of a young nation to know and understand its natural resources. During the Twentieth Century the United States saw the need for a thorough inventory farmland and woodland throughout the country to document potential productivity of the land. The result was the National Cooperative Soil Survey.

With the National Cooperative Soil Survey came the recognition that we as a nation needed to start conserving the precious soil, land and water resources of our private lands. The Soil Conservation Service (the predecessor to today’s Natural Resources Conservation Service) was created to provide leadership in a partnership effort to help people conserve, maintain, and improve our natural resources and environment.

Communities and local governments work with NRCS State Offices and local USDA Service Centers to help them protect their natural resources. NRCS also provides information on climatology, water management, watershed planning, and flood control.

Through the Resource Conservation and Development (RC&D) Program, NRCS helps the residents of communities improve their quality of life through the conservation of natural resources and through community development. Local RC&D Councils will be providing their usual grass-roots energy in communities along the historic trial in conjunction with the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commemoration.

Every time we buy a loaf of bread, or turn on the tap for a cool drink of water, or admire a flock of geese heading south in the fall, we are connected to the land. While much has changed on the landscape since the Lewis and Clark expedition, none of us has lost our dependence on the land and what it has to offer. While we have become an urban nation, we remain an agricultural land, and preserving private land for the purpose of production is just as important today as it was in 1803 when Lewis and Clark launched their remarkable expedition.

What our land has to offer and how we manage it remains crucial to our economic and environment well-being, even if we never set foot on a farm or ranch.

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