"The Bottoms"...that's what they called the land that served as the broad

[Skidmore]

flood plain under the bluffs on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River where I grew up. In good years it made great farm land and in years the river flooded the farmers left it fallow and tried again the next year. That was what happened when I was a small child. Then came the Lock and Dam a bit upstream and the flooding was controlled. Farmers used the land with minimal flooding every years until the great flood of 1993 and the one of 2008.

I live a mile over from the Iowa River now. I watched the past few years as that river reclaimed its flood plain and fields have returned to wet lands. Fish now swim where corn grew and the cranes, geese, and ducks swim among reeds. It did not take long after man was pushed out by the waters.

Where we have not practiced responsible stewardship of the land and waterways nature is slowly reclaiming them. Purging us from the fields, forests, and wetlands. I love and have a hearty respect for Old Man River. He's been rollin' down to the Gulf many more centuries than the men who tried to tame him have been there. I would love to see the flood plains reestablished. For the river to flow freely again.

[justiceischeap]

1. Where I grew up in Kansas City, MO I lived in The Bottoms too

It's where us poor folk lived in the early 70s.

[Skidmore]

2. My grandfather had a tract of land in The Bottoms which he farmed

in the good years. My grandparents lived in a little 3 bedroom frame house up on the bluff above. They raised 12 kids in that little house. Corn and beans in the good years and pigs and cattle in the lean years. It was enough to support a family.

[virgogal]

3. What wonderful grandparents----God,they must have worked hard.

[itsrobert]

4. Sgt York wanted some bottom land

Mother York: That there's bottom land soil, ain't it? Queer how the folks on the bottom looks down on the folks on the top. It was always that way. No changin' it!
Alvin: I'm gonna *get* us a piece of bottom land!
Mother York: Your pa set out to get a piece of bottom land once. Nary a man ever tried any harder! Liked to *kill* hisself tryin'!"

------So, it seems how poor you may feel you are, there are always people wanting what you have that are poorer.

[leftyladyfrommo]

6. the Bottoms are still there - mostly industrial now.

I think there are still a few houses but not many.

[xchrom]

5. recommend

[nenagh]

7. So enjoyed reading that Skidmore..

Listened to Paul Robson singing "Old Man River" this am... He had an amazing voice.

[Frustratedlady]

8. Great writing. I was born a little higher up on the Iowa bottoms.

When I was around 3, the folks moved away from the Mississippi, as they had gone thru one flood, and that was enough for them.

They used to dredge a lot more than they do now. Maybe it's time to dredge out all those high spots and build up the banks again..

[Sal Minella]

9. I would guess that spring flooding used to replenish the

fields along the river with waterborne silts (full of minerals) and microflora.

The Egyptians looked with gratitude on the flooding of the Nile replenishing the fields -- if Monsanto's herbicides are going to kill off the microflora in our farmlands, we need to restock somehow.

Would be interesting to compare future yields on the flooded fields with yields on unflooded fields, eh? I mean nutrition-wise, not just bushels/acre.

[Skidmore]

11. Some of the richest farmland on earth was fed by those waters.

[Sal Minella]

12. I live near many incredibly black fields that are flat as a tabletop.

Little or no problem with erosion exists on fields so flat, I'm sure -- whereas rolling fields nearby look pale and "bald" on their rises because the erosion. But many of these fields have grassed waterways draining them now. The worms will do their work and make black dirt on those pale hills if Monsanto will give them half a chance.

Many years ago I realized that good black farmland is the only form of wealth worth having. We can't eat gold.

I read that much CRP ground is going out of pheasant habitat and into corn/beans production, and can't say I blame the farmers, but I blame the ethanol subsidy goons.

The water table seems to be rising and reclaiming wetlands at a record pace now -- streams here are still out of their banks and low fields have acres and acres of standing water, many replete with mallards.

Out on the road the other day, saw lots of tiling coils on flatbeds. I think tiling probably ain't going to do it in the long run, though. Wonder if we can grow rice here? (It's not funny, I know.)

[Skidmore]

13. You are so right.

Black soil with big fat earthworms writhing with every shovelful. Our fields are prairie lands but they are rich loam and over large groundwater deposits. Farmers are out in force today trying to get crops in. We have had below normal temps until now and parts of the state had a hard freeze last night. Only 8% of the crops are in now as opposed to the normal 82% by this time. I feel lucky to live in an area where people work to preserve the land, including maintaining wetlands and the forests. For every walnut tree that goes into the local furniture production an other is planted.

[Sal Minella]

10. dupe.