•April 3, 2024•

by Janet Roney

In Robert Frost’s poem, Fire and Ice, he wonders whether fire or ice will destroy our world. He thought fire would, but “…I know enough of hate to say that for destruction ice is also great…” 

Yes, ice certainly destroys, but the last glacier that came down from Wisconsin and Canada during our current ice age did some very good things to Moultrie County. Let’s review. 

It left a flat surface with a fresh new covering of glacial drift that filled in old river valleys that are the aquifers that give us water. Because it stopped just beyond Gays at the southern edge of the county, our soil has weathered for just 18,000 years instead of the 300,000 years of weathering of soils to the south. Our growing season is longer than anywhere else on earth the glacier covered. All of this contributed to making some of the most valuable farmland in the world here in Moultrie County.  

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