What Are The Causes Of The Dust Bowl
Causes Of The Dirty Thirties
Up, up, and away! Dust is flying and blowing around in the sky like airplanes. It is the 1930’s and America is facing the sad times of the Great Depression. But the Great Depression is not the only problem the U.S. is facing. Banks were failing, businesses were closing, and workers were being fired. A big struggle was faced by farmers in the Southern Great Plains, and that was the Dust Bowl. The question at mind now is what caused this tragedy to hit us when we thought we were already at our worst? Here are some supposed causes of the Dust Bowl.
The first cause of the Dust Bowl was the progress in technology. Farmers were thrilled when faster and more effective tools were made to harvest crops instead of the horse-drawn plow. Tractors, plows, and combines were added to most farmers daily routines, the tools that helped change everything. 10 horses were the equivalent to the work of one tractor. Combines cut and threshed the grain in one swoop, using less than half as much labor. Plows worked faster at uncovering more soil and ripping up more grass. Harvesting was going great and …show more content…
According to John Wesley Powell, 20 inches of rain annually was necessary to grow crops in regions like the Southern Great Plains, and that was the minimal. The average rainfall between the five states the Dust Bowl hit the hardest, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, and Kansas, was 17 inches of rain. From 1931 to 1940 in Dalhart, Texas, only one year reached Powell’s minimum rainfall average. This absence of rain distressed farmers. Some left in hope for a better paying job and better life, one with clean lungs. Most stayed however and fought out the storm. They would sleep with washcloths over their noses and try to lie still, careful not to stir up the dust on their sheets. Cattle would run in circles until they fall and breathe in so much dust that they die. This decade was one of great
Up, up, and away! Dust is flying and blowing around in the sky like airplanes. It is the 1930’s and America is facing the sad times of the Great Depression. But the Great Depression is not the only problem the U.S. is facing. Banks were failing, businesses were closing, and workers were being fired. A big struggle was faced by farmers in the Southern Great Plains, and that was the Dust Bowl. The question at mind now is what caused this tragedy to hit us when we thought we were already at our worst? Here are some supposed causes of the Dust Bowl.
The first cause of the Dust Bowl was the progress in technology. Farmers were thrilled when faster and more effective tools were made to harvest crops instead of the horse-drawn plow. Tractors, plows, and combines were added to most farmers daily routines, the tools that helped change everything. 10 horses were the equivalent to the work of one tractor. Combines cut and threshed the grain in one swoop, using less than half as much labor. Plows worked faster at uncovering more soil and ripping up more grass. Harvesting was going great and …show more content…
According to John Wesley Powell, 20 inches of rain annually was necessary to grow crops in regions like the Southern Great Plains, and that was the minimal. The average rainfall between the five states the Dust Bowl hit the hardest, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, and Kansas, was 17 inches of rain. From 1931 to 1940 in Dalhart, Texas, only one year reached Powell’s minimum rainfall average. This absence of rain distressed farmers. Some left in hope for a better paying job and better life, one with clean lungs. Most stayed however and fought out the storm. They would sleep with washcloths over their noses and try to lie still, careful not to stir up the dust on their sheets. Cattle would run in circles until they fall and breathe in so much dust that they die. This decade was one of great