dicker wasn’t in trouble yet, DeWaldntold him, but he would be if he plantedna cereal crop on the land, which wouldnbe a violation of the “Swampbuster”nact. According to DeWald, the localnconservationist also talked to Widicker,nreiterating that grass seed on the convertednwetland would be okay, but thatneven a nurse crop, or cover crop, in thengrass seed would count as a commodityncrop and would be a violation. Widickernseems to have agreed to the stipulation.nHe was serious about seeding thatnfresh dirt, though, before it blew awaynagain, and the ditch, too, the more henthought about it—but the crew didn’tnhave a seed drill. Widicker happened tonhave one, and also some grass seed mixnthat included a little barley. Barley is ancommon cover, used to protect unmaintainedngrass from harsh sun andnwind as it gets a roothold in the soil.nWidicker himself seeded the highwaynditches and then turned to his littlenpatch of slough.nWell, that bariey did him in. When itnwas discovered, the SCS informed thenASCS (Agricultural Stabilization andnConservation Service, another USDAnarm), which has little flexibility in thenpenalties it must impose. The ASCSninformed Widicker that he would havento give back the $7,300 in commoditynprice supports they had already givennhim (plus $225 in interest), that henwould not receive the remainingn$12,500 that he had been promised,nand that any Farm Home Administrationnloans he had might be endangered,nalong with his Federal Crop Insurance.nWidicker appealed to the local ASCSnboard in Fessenden, fifteen miles north.nHis protest was predictable—that henhad never intended to harvest the barley,nas the rest of the field was in wheat,nand that in including it in the mix henhad simply been following the USDA’snlong-standing, ecologically sound prescriptionnto include a nurse crop withngrass that won’t receive much maintenance.nAccording to him, the localnboard sympathized, but still. Congressnhad made the law and Widicker hadnbroken it. There was no turning back.nThen Widicker went to the ASCSnoffice and got them to appraise his litdenformer slough. They found the barleynthere so sparse that it would havenproduced only twelve-hundredths of anbushel per acre, and the little patch ofnwetland would produce slightly lessnthan a quart of barley.nNow, maybe there’s no moral here,nexcept that the government never kidsnaround, and Leo Widicker should havenknown that. There are also some whonfind modern farm programs, in theirnpachydermal incomprehensibility,nlaughable, and perhaps those peoplenare right — perhaps farmers don’t deservenspecial aid, any more than othernartifacts of American culture, such asnAvon ladies and Cood Humor men.nThere are some who might say thatnLeo Widicker didn’t lose any money,nhe just didn’t get all the governmentnhandouts he’d counted on, and theynmay be right.nBut there is a farm program, farmersnhave learned to count on it, and it hitnLeo Widicker with a nuclear flyswatter.nDave DeWald admits that thenpenalties are too stilT. He says that innthe 1990 farm bill Congress will attemptnto pro-rate the violations, makenthe punishment fit the crime, so tonspeak. For now, though, that badeynLeo Widicker may have planted knowingnhe was breaking the law but plantednbecause he’s a conscientious husbandman—nthat quart of barley, aboutnenough to make a pot of soup — mayncost him his farm.nJane Greer writes from Bismarck,nNorth Dakota, where she is editor ofnPlains Poetry Journal.nLetter From Parisnby Curtis CatenThe Grand IllusionnTwenty years from now, when futurenhistorians look back at the 1980’s, somenof them may be tempted to call it then”Decade of the Crand Illusion.” Fornnot since les annees folles, as thenFrench still call the giddy I920’s, hasnthe Western world lived in such a statenof deceptive euphoria.nThe besetting sin of all democracies,nthe Achilles Heel of the democraticnsystem, as students of history havenknown since the age of AncientnCreece, is a chronic reluctance to facenfacts. This unwillingness is encouragednby the perennial vice that lies at thenheart of the democratic system, and fornnnwhich the ancient Creeks also coined anvaluable term: demagogy.nNothing has’ contributed more tonenhance the Crand Illusion of then1980’s than the sudden collapse of thenMarxist myth and the dramatic disintegrationnof the Soviet Empire. Thisnastonishing development caused peoplenon both sides of the Atlantic to looknback upon the Reagan years as a kindnof Colden Age, not unlike the GrandnSiecle of Louis XIV. But just as thenspendthrift character of Louis XIV’snoveriy splendid reign was, less than ancentury later, one of the contributingncauses of the collapse of the AnciennRegime and the onset of the FrenchnRevolution, so the fanciful illusion thatna country can go on living permanentlynabove its means, accumulating enormousnbudget deficits and astronomicnbalance-of-trade gaps, has so weakenednthe public’s perception of what urgentlynneeds to be done if the U.S. economynis to be saved from shipwreck, thatnit will probably take more than onenmajor shock — like the present Culfncrisis — to awake the American peoplenfrom a trance that seems to havenparalyzed the national will.nUnderlying the Grand Illusion ofnthe Reagan years was the simplemindednbelief that the United States couldngo on consuming almost one-fifth ofnthe planet’s petroleum output, couldncontinue manufacturing gas-guzzlingncars, and, since gasoline was cheap andnwould axiomatically remain so, did notnneed to undertake any serious programnof energy conservation. Many personsnin Great Britain, Holland, and Norwayn— the three main beneficiaries of thenNorth Sea “oil, glut” (now alreadynbeginning to run dry) — may have succumbednto this heady illusion, but Inthink it fair to say that few Frenchmenn”fell” for this alluring myth. This is notnto suggest for one moment that innFrance the number of demagoguesnroaming the political landscape is proportionatelynless great than in the UnitednStates. French socialists, led bynFrangois Mitterrand, were a hopelesslynirresponsible lot during the earlyn1980’s, and their wild debauch — innnationalizing banks and various industrialnsectors—led to three successivendevaluations of the franc; but at nontime did their ideological aberrationsnencompass the grotesque belief thatncheap gasoline is an inalienable birth-nMARCH 1991/47n