Iowa: Agriculture and the Tallgrass Prairie

Backcountry Hunters & Anglers Podcasts and Blasts · Jun 17, 2025 · 1h 19m

"At first the Euroamerican settlers could not fathom the tallgrass prairie.

Stepping into it from cropland-speckled woodlands to the east, they entered

a land of sky and horizon, wind and light, flower and scent, a surging sea of

grasses that staggered the imagination. The prairie grasslands seemed to

stretch on forever, a landscape that promised no enclosure, only intensity

and exposure…"

So writes Cornelia (Connie) Mutel in her book, The Emerald Horizon: The

History of Nature in Iowa, a modern classic of natural history. Mutel has spent

her life chronicling the fantastic and beleaguered…