Fast forward to 1969, and Bamberger knew he couldn’t fix the entire Hill Country. But he wanted to use his chicken riches to revive his own piece of it, building on the early example set by his mom and by Bromfield, whose Ohio farm has been turned into a state park that educates others about land stewardship.

“I contacted several ranch brokers who tried to sell me spreads with huge houses, airstrips, and other fancy infrastructure,” Bamberger recalls. “I couldn’t get them to understand that was not what I was looking for.” So he reached out to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He told a soil conservation agent he was looking for the most played-out ranch in the region.

“Well, this is Texas, and there is plenty of that,” the agent told him. “I just hope you’re not planning on raising any cattle.”

He was, in fact. Bamberger purchased 3,000 acres near Johnson City, north of San Antonio and southwest of Austin, which he later expanded by 2,500 acres. The ranch was mostly bare ground or infested with cedar. There was no grass and absolutely no live creeks, springs, or ponds. When Bamberger drilled a series of water wells, not one of them produced a drop.

Undeterred, Bamberger assembled a group of Texas A&M-educated professionals—he called them his Cow Aggie, his Tree Aggie, his Deer Aggie, and his Dam Aggie—and went to work. With a used bulldozer, they attacked the cedar, learning as they went to avoid the steeper slopes, taking care not to exacerbate erosion. Then they planted native grasses to hold the topsoil in place. Bamberger, his sons, and his team bought so much native seed from local suppliers they were accused of cornering the market, a feat he jokingly admits he never achieved with fried chicken.

Slowly, the landscape at Selah began to change. As the cedar was removed and grasses took root, the hills took on a vibrant green hue. Instead of running off, the raindrops increasingly were absorbed into the soil, recharging a shallow aquifer just below the surface and, little by little, resurrecting the springs.