Finally, much of the hilliest, most eroded landscape in the benighted
South of the s was indeed greened, and healed, by a storied exotic
plant: kudzu. First imported from Japan at least as early as the s, kudzu
became popular as a quick-growing forage crop and nutritious hay. Then
it proved itself an excellent bandage over wounded ground. Government
agencies set crews to planting settings throughout thedomain, and in-
spectors confirmed that kudzu slowed and halted erosion, preserving what
was left of sometimes jaggedly cut hills. Private individuals set out kudzu,
too, and sometimes fretted that it climbed and covered utility poles and
wires in short order. Once, while walking at night in a residential neighbor-
hood near downtown Atlanta, I myself stumbled on kudzu vines streaming
from a vacant lot over a public sidewalk. No wonder ‘‘Kudzu’’ became a long-
running cartoon and comic subject for novelists and stage performers. Still,
any Alabama farmboy or -girl knows that a couple of cows might easily con-
trol a three-acre field of kudzu, while the field itself remains lush and stable.
What could be finer?