Posted by jackinok on August 22, 2012 at 06:53:27 from (162.58.82.136):
In Reply to: No more dust bowls? posted by JerryS on August 21, 2012 at 21:13:37:
a few things you have to remember about the dust bowl days.One, and the main one, is that there was afarm on every 40-160 acres. NOT a cattle ranch,not a hobby farm,but a true working farm with most if not all available ground tilled.it didnt matter that it was marginal ground, we had to work it simply to survive.They,and we, did it first to feed ourselves,then to take the remainder if any to market. There was NO electricty, so you couldnt irrigate if you did have the well.There were very few gas stations,most gas was bought in five gallon cans at the hardware store. Most places didnt even have water wells,and water was hauled. Very few actual maintained roads ,(the first paved road western okla was not even built yet) very few tractors, 99% of this work was done with horses and mules.Most places 160 acres was considered the very minimum a family of four could own and simply survive after feeding your livestock and your self. So when families made a bumper crop or a little money like they did for the few years before the dust bowl they did it,just like folks are now with crop prices being high. Tillage practices have NOT changed all that much.We were subsoiling,chisel plowing,minimum tilling with listers etc. you had to to make a crop to feed yourself in areas with less than 25 inches of rain in the BEST of years. To put it quite bluntly railroads ,shysters,and in fact the us gov itself promised poor immigrant families who were rioting in the streets of eastern cities for the jobs they were promised,free land and once they got here they were simply forgotten.They farmed like they had before in their home countries and some made a lot of money at first.But all the while folks who lived here before were telling them to it couldnt last.Those families are the ones who survived for the most part because we knew from prior experience what would happen. COULD it happen again? not like it did then in my opinion.you have to remember that the dust storms you recall,and that often left 1/4" of dust on decks of ships 100 miles out in the atlantic, didnt happen at first.it was a combination of vast areas of marginal ground plowed up,not simply one year ,but year after year as folks desperatly tried to feed themselves and their stock.You had to try to feed yourself simply because there was no other choice.there was no welfare, no assistance,no food banks ,no commodity programs ,no school lunches.You either made a garden or crop,or you starved (and many many many DID starve) in 1936 the life expectancy of a person on a farm in the west was exactly half that of a person in even the worst eastern city.cholera,disentary,malaria, killed thousands,and scurvy was very very common simply because you couldnt get enough vegetables and fruit. so we had to TRY to farm or simply leave,and most couldnt afford to go anywhere,OR were not allowed to leave by the gov because of their indian blood. so by about the fifth or sixth year of trying to feed our selves the soil was literaly as fine as talcum powder.It didnt matter here if the wind was blowing or not,simply walking down the road stirred the dust and it hanged in the air constantly. today its not likely to happen that way again simply because there is not 1/10 of the land there was then plowed up. tree rows wouldnt have helped,and they actually didnt do anything to stop the dust bowl ,thats a 100% MYTH!!! you couldnt have got a tree to grow anyway or anyhow! the wind and sand would have and did strip the bark right off. the grasshopers and wildlife ate the handles out of shovels, a tree would have been like a five course dinner! if youve never seen grashoppers and locusts two inches deep as far as you can see you cant imagine what they eat. tree rows were planted AFTER the dust bowl,after we took bull dozers and scoops to relevel the land.the ONLY THING that stopped the dust bowl was rain.nothing else had a chance in the world of helping. folks who tell you gov programs stopped the dust bowl, are telling you quite simply a lie,or a untruth.nothing the gov could have done even would have helped.the most they did was to help feed folks. nothing could have stopped it,just like nothing can stop the current drought.nothing whatsoever could have prevented it at that time and in those conditions. my family were luckier than most because we werent farmers,we were ranchers.but once the drought started we ran all our cattle into pens and shot them to keep them from starving to death.horses and mules dropped dead in the harness of folks trying to leave,cars and tractors wouldnt run.(we, believe it or not would drain the oil out of our cars,and the cars oil bath oil filters and strain them through a cloth every day in an attempt to keep dirt out of the engines.some folks even gave up trying to dig theirs out simply because it was better for one to be burried than out in the sand storms.it was simply a different time in a different world.. IT CAN ABSOLUTLY happen again its happening as we speak all over the world. but could it get that bad here again? no i dont think so simply because we know what to watch for and can adjust accordingly. in many ways the dust bowl here was driven by desperation, just like it is in countries all over the world today. despite all the scientific theories ,the social/ political rhetoric,the american farmer was then exactly what those poor folks in those third world countries are today.we and they did and do what we had to simply to survive. sorry to go on but you expected to be flamed!LOL
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