In this new, enlarged edition, John Opie updates his groundbreaking work on the environmental history of the Ogallala aquifer and plains farming. He addresses the impact of the 1996 Farm Bill (Federal Agricultural Improvement and Reform Act) and looks at the recent movement of industrial hog farming onto the plains. Opie also develops his argument for the plains as a "moral geography," a view involving the recognition by society that it has an obligation to balance the responsibility for conserving natural resources with that for keeping a regional people--the family farmers--in operation.