On a June afternoon in 1931, Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed his fellow governors assembled in Indiana for their annual conference. The severe economic situation, he said, called for positive leadership, tangible experiments, and government guidance. Yet Roosevelt confined his remarks that day to one particular aspect of the nation's troubles – the “dislocation of a proper balance between urban and rural life.” Describing how hundreds of farmers clung to exhausted lands and eked out an existence far below the “American standard of living,” he outlined measures New York State had initiated to classify lands, relieve tax burdens, purchase and reforest submarginal farmland, and bring cheaper electricity to the agricultural areas. He looked forward to a time when farmers cultivating land too worn to yield a profit would find alternate employment in factories close to rural communities. Planning for “a permanent agriculture,” Roosevelt explained, was the state's ultimate purpose.

Roosevelt's calls for “a proper balance” and “a permanent agriculture” encapsulated a new style of conservationist thinking, one largely developed in the decade before the New Deal. Conservationists in the Progressive era had essentially confined their efforts to waterways, forests, and recreational lands, and they advocated public ownership (mostly in the sparsely settled West) as the primary remedy for individual and corporate misuse. While the Progressives failed to win provisions for national, multiple-purpose river basin planning after World War I, the movement continued to influence natural resource policy during the 1920s.

Rarely have I presented parts of this study that someone hasn't asked about the connection between New Deal domestic policy and the postwar export and influence of these attitudes and techniques. “Now I understand why Lyndon Johnson would have proposed a TVA for the Mekong Delta,” many say, often shaking their heads sadly to acknowledge Johnson's naivete. In this epilogue I'd like to trace a few aspects of this international story, not by analyzing the route to Vietnam, of course, but by exploring how New Deal personnel traveled abroad to assist developing countries and how they helped create a new institutional network for assisted modernization. My intent here is not to make decisive claims about U.S. foreign policy but to suggest the existence of overlap and continuity between domestic and foreign affairs. What shaped many of these overseas rural development efforts was the favorable assessment of the recent American experience and the belief that war–ravaged and developing countries alike would benefit from similar agrarian and industrial resource policies.

The Hill Country forms both the physical and the psychological heart of Texas. The proper geographical name for this area is the Edwards Plateau, a rocky region that rises to the west of Austin and San Antonio. Crisp air and superb views surprise the visitor accustomed to the humid pine forests and swampy lowlands of East Texas, or the dry prairies of West Texas. In spring the scrub oaks and cedar (actually juniper, but Texans dub it “cedar”) fill with songbirds, and prickly pear cactus poke through fields of wildflowers. Clear streams weave along limestone beds, often dropping into deep blue pools framed by willow trees.

Today, the Hill Country is best known for its recreational opportunities and retirement living. The mountains overlook a string of sparkling man-made reservoirs, jammed full each weekend with Jet Skis and motorboats. Expensive Italianate villas share the view with clusters of stucco condominiums, and bed-and-breakfasts offer nostalgic weekend retreats complete with log cabins, fly fishing, and goat milking. But for much of its history the Hill Country remained isolated, an unforgiving landscape of poor land and even poorer farmers. Lured there in the nineteenth century by the region's lush grass and clear streams, settlers soon found that cattle grazing exposed the thin layer of topsoil. Heat and drought scorched the bare earth, and streams dried to a trickle. Flash floods carved gullies into the hillsides and washed away the land's illusive fertility. Cedar brakes and tenacious hardwood brush took over the eroded hills.