Country Life

Most people assume that kudzu, The Vine that Ate the South, was somehow “accidentally” introduced from Asia. In fact, it was touted as a miracle cure by the government for healing the south’s ailing soil.

A little botanical investigation reveals why. Kudzu is a legume, and like most legumes, it deposits nitrogen in the soil as it grows, which other plants can then use. It grows profusely even in bone-dry infertile conditions, producing tons of organic matter per acre with its voluminous biomass. Plus, livestock of all kinds will eat the foliage, which is as rich in protein as alfalfa, offering a way to make the landscape instantly productive again.

In the 1930s and 1940s, the Soil Conservation Service grew 70 million kudzu seedlings and began distributing them to farmers, free of charge. To encourage participation in their ill-advised experiment, government agents travelled the back roads preaching the virtues of the plant and offering $8 per acre to grow it. A newspaper columnist named Channing Cope became the wonder-crop’s chief evangelist. “The healing touch of the miracle vine,” he wrote in the Atlanta Constitution, would make the South’s farms “live again.” Cope spearheaded the Kudzu Club of America, which boasted a membership of 20,000 at its peak in the mid-1940s.