Walt Whitman would be happy to remain dead if he could see how over-breeding so increased the demand for crops that the prairies and plains are forever destroyed:
While I know the standard claim is that Yosemite, Niagara Falls, the upper Yellowstone and the like afford the greatest natural shows, I am not so sure but the prairies and the plains, while less stunning at first sight, last longer, fill the esthetic sense fuller, precede all the rest, and make North America’s characteristic landscape. Indeed, through the whole of this journey, what most impressed me, and will longest remain with me, are these same prairies. Day after day, and night after night, to my eyes, to all my senses - the esthetic one most of all - they silently and broadly unfolded. Even their simplest statistics are sublime. (Quoted from Specimen Days, by Walt Whitman. Doubleday, Doran & Co. 1935. p.351.)
For a brief biography of Walt Whitman, click here.
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