Center-pivot irrigation was not invented to look pretty. The technology was developed, by a Nebraskan farmer in 1948, as an alternative to the groundwater-irrigation methods that failed to sustain many American farms through the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. These new, elevated pipes radiated out from the centers of fields as far as 133 acres, making it unnecessary to lay and later remove pipes from the ground. Useful as this new technology proved to be, it also provided an ancillary aesthetic benefit: It has created distinct circles within squares that,…
