You are standing in front of a reader rail titled “Window on the Past: Unsustainable Practices.” To your left is a graphic panel titled “European Settlers.” To your right is a graphic panel titled “The Plantation Economy.” Behind you is a large, four-sided artifact case.

The reader rail in front of you includes text and one image.

The main text reads:

WINDOW ON THE PAST
Unsustainable Practices
European settlers used the land to grow tobacco and raise livestock. Generations of intensive land use exhausted the soil, draining it of nutrients. Repeated plowing caused erosion and silted up waterways. Some of this damage can still be seen today in the rolling landscape and sediment-choked streams that once flowed wide, deep, and clear.

The accompanying photo shows a creek with greenish-brown water. The caption reads: Muddy Creek, a local stream, was known as Herring Creek until the early 1700s. Sedimentation and overfishing caused the herring to essentially disappear.