Dusty well cracked, life hard in the extreme (11)
I believe the answer is:
springfield
'dusty' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'well cracked life hard in the extreme' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'well' could be 'spring' (I've seen this before) and 'spring' is found in the answer.
an anagram of 'life' is 'fiel' which is located in the answer.
A single letter 'd' remains which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for springfield that I've seen before include "US state capital - Dusty" , "The Simpsons' town" , "town of Flanders?" .)