Henceforth, the natural grasses of the plains no longer held the earth itself together, leaving it free to blow away with the wind across the country. As Donald Worster puts it, “An old and unique ecological complex had been destroyed by man, leaving him with no buffer against the elements, leaving the land free to blow away.” (Worster 66) The natural grasses of the plains had evolved as the perfect fit for the region. Notably, the long roots of these grasses formed a web, holding the earth together. Timothy Egan best explains the importance of this natural sod of the plains in his The Worst Hard Time:
When the native sod of the Great Plains was in place, it did not matter if people looked twice at a piece of ground. Wind blew twenty,
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Despite the numerable variables responsible for its creation, it was ultimately the human factor that resulted in the Dust Bowl and the aftermath that followed. First off, the federal government encouraged movement to the west with various programs, notably with the Homestead Act of 1862. Thus, new and inexperienced farmers flooded the plains, seeking to snatch up the last of the land. They brought with them the aforementioned notion that “rain follows the plow” and that they could change the climate in their favor just by farming the land. Since wheat prices were so high due to high demand, theses farmers planted wheat. A key point is, though, that a surplus was created as demand lowered as a result of the Great Depression, and to increase their profits, more wheat was planted. Unfortunately, the very way the wheat was planted had a immensely harmful impact on the plains; it destroyed the native grasses and the sod it subsequently created. The grasses held the soil of the plains together, but, since they were damaged beyond the point in which they could repair themselves, the ecosystem lacked the protection it usually possessed against droughts. Furthermore, the region was used to droughts and, henceforth, the grass had evolved to combat them. However, farmers tore up the grass, leaving the land with no natural protection against the elements. Consequently, the dirt was picked up and flung across the plains and the country, creating the dust storms that are the Dust Bowl’s namesake. In the end, it is important to realize the effect humans had the environment of the Southern Plains. The destruction of what seemed to be useless grass turned out to be the plains’ downfall. As such, it is important to understand the importance of all the parts of an ecosystem as well as the land itself. By doing this, future
All over the country Native Americans would use this practice to prepare their fields for planting or create areas for the local wildlife. Taylor succeeds in his message of reorienting his readers view. Contrary to common belief Native Americans suffered more from European diseases and affected their local environments with fires.
“Soil butchery” by excessive tobacco growing drove settlers westward, and the long, lazy rivers invited penetration of the continent-and continuing confrontation with Native
The farmers had torn out millions of miles of prairie grass so that they could farm there. Without the grass, dust began to kick up and storm around the air causing dust storms.
Egan notes, “No group of people took a more dramatic leap in lifestyle or prosperity, in such a short time, than wheat farmers on the Great Plains” (Egan 42). The revenue from selling wheat far exceeded the cost of producing the wheat, so the large profit attracted people to produce more and more wheat. On top of the high profit from wheat, the Great War caused the price of wheat to rise even more. The supply of wheat rose with the price, but Egan points to information to demonstrate that the rapid increase in production can lead to overproduction, which is damaging to the land. Also, the invention of the tractor also lead to overproduction of the land by creating the ability to dramatically cut the time it took to harvest acres. When the prices for wheat began to fall due to overproduction, this caused the farmers to produce even more output to be able to make the same earnings as when the prices were higher. The government also played a part in promoting the overproduction of the land. The Federal Bureau of Soils claimed that, “The soil is the one indestructible, immutable asset that the nation possessed. It is the one resource that cannot be exhausted, that cannot be used up” (Egan 51). Egan points to factors such as a high profit margin, the Great War, tractors, increased outputs when wheat prices fell, and governmental claims that caused the people to overproduce the land of the Great Plains. Egan then gives examples of how the overproduction destroyed the land. Egan explains that the farmers saw their only way out was to plant more wheat. This overproduction tore up the grass of the Great Plains, thus making the land more susceptible to the severe dust storms of the Dust
Because of westward expansion, America gained a significant amount of fertile land which contributed to the nation 's’ agrarian identity. The wilderness and landscape
On one hand some say Native Indians in New England had ritual practices that created a stable self-regulating system. It balanced the human impact upon the surrounding ecology. On the opposite hand, one could say there is no stable way to interact with the environment. An unstable reaction can always be found. The riddle compels the reader to explore both the differences between Native Indians and Colonials way of living and how they impacted the land and its ecology. Through this study one can determine not only what exactly happened, but also how the land was before such changes
The Dust Bowl occurred for many reasons, most all our fault. “Some of the reasons that the Dust Bowl occurred were over-farming, livestock overgrazing, drought and poor farming practices.” (Dust Bowl facts and summary) Because of this negative experience it now teached us to be careful and now we know what to do to prevent this.“When drought struck from 1934 to 1937, the soil lacked the stronger root system of grass as an anchor.”("Dust Bowl Facts and summary") That's really bad for the farmers because then the wind can easily pick up the dirt off the
...t Bowl. Unfortunately the circumstances in the Great Plains all came to a head resulting in a horrific ten years for citizens of the Great Plains. The Dust Bowl caused government and people to look at farming practices and to evaluate their output. These policies resulted in overproduction of crops causing the prices to fall. The conclusion of World War I and countries that stopped importing foods added to the pain the farmers were already feeling. Yet with the establishment of government policies such as the Federal Relief Administration and the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act and with drought coming to an end, the Dust Bowl came to an end. The American people knew that they needed to do everything that was possible to end the Dust Bow. Tom Joad, the lead character in The Grapes Wrath best sums it up “ I know this... a man got to do what he got to do.”
Farming was the major growing production in the United States in the 1930's. Panhandle farming attached many people because it attracted many people searching for work. The best crop that was prospering around the country was wheat. The world needed it and the United States could supply it easily because of rich mineral soil. In the beginning of the 1930's it was dry but most farmers made a wheat crop. In 1931 everyone started farming wheat. The wheat crop forced the price down from sixty-eight cents/ bushels in July 1930 to twenty-five cents/ bushels July 1931. Many farmers went broke and others abandoned their fields. As the storms approached the farmers were getting ready. Farmers increased their milking cowherds. The cream from the cows was sold to make milk and the skim milk was fed to the chickens and pigs. When normal feed crops failed, thistles were harvested, and when thistles failed, hardy souls dug up soap weed, which was chopped in a feed mill or by hand and fed to the stock. This was a backbreaking, disheartening chore, which would have broken weaker people. But to the credit of the residents of the Dust Bowl, they shouldered their task and carried on. The people of the region made it because they knew how to take the everyday practical things, which had been used for years and adapt them to meet the crisis.
The drought caused a lot of unfavorable conditions for farmers in the southwest. In Worster’s book he says “Few of us want to live in the region now. There is too much wind, dirt, flatness, space, barbed wire, drought, uncertainty, hard work…” (Worster 105). The droughts caused many unfavorable condition throughout the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles and neighboring sections of Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico. Thus, roughly one-third of Texas and Oklahoman farmers left their homes and headed to California in search of migrant work. The droughts during the 1930s are a drastically misrepresented factor of the Dust bowl considering “the 1930s droughts were, in the words of a Weather Bureau scientist, the worst in the climatological history of the country.” (Worster 232) Some of the direct effects of the droughts were that many of the farmers’ crops were damaged by deficient rainfall, high temperatures, and high winds, as well as insect infestations and dust storms that accompanied these conditions. What essentially happened was that the soil lacked the stronger root system of grass as an anchor, so the winds easily picked up the loose topsoil and swirled it into dense dust clouds, called “black blizzards.” The constant dry weather caused crops to fail, leaving the plowed fields exposed to wind erosion. The effects of the drought happened so rapidly and progressively over time that
...s. These lands were “usually in less desirable locations and discouraged any successful transition to agriculture”.24
The Dust Bowl was "the darkest moment in the twentieth-century life of the southern plains," (pg. 4) as described by Donald Worster in his book "The Dust Bowl." It was a time of drought, famine, and poverty that existed in the 1930's. It's cause, as Worster presents in a very thorough manner, was a chain of events that was perpetuated by the basic capitalistic society's "need" for expansion and consumption. Considered by some as one of the worst ecological catastrophes in the history of man, Worster argues that the Dust Bowl was created not by nature's work, but by an American culture that was working exactly the way it was planned. In essence, the Dust Bowl was the effect of a society, which deliberately set out to take all it could from the earth while giving next to nothing back.
expansion on the native Americans of the Great Plains in the mid-19th century." History today. no. 4 (2006): 42.
To begin with, the “Dust Bowl” was one of the causes of economic fallout which resulted in the Great Depression. Because the “Dust Bowl” destroyed crops which were used to sell and make profit, the government had to give up a lot of money in order to try and help the people and land affected by the “Dust Bowl”. The “Dust Bowl” refers to a time during the 1930’s where the Great Plains region was drastically devastated by drought. All of the areas (Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico) all had little to no rainfall, light soil, and high winds, which were not a very suitable combination. The drought lasted from 1934 to 1937, most of the soil during the drought lacked the better root system of grass.
The idea and the creation of rains, grains, and fertile plains through the very season of spring-