Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations - Kootenay Local Agricultural Society

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Figure 20. Buried machinery in barn lot, Dallas, South Dakota, May 13, 1936
(USDA image No:00di0971 CD8151–971; available at www.usda.gov/oc/photo/
00di0971.htm).
marginal land. The Kansas State Board of Agriculture, for example, blamed
the disaster on poor farming practices. “Soil has been cultivated when
extremely dry, and no effort has been made, in most cases, to return organic
matter to the soil. ...When cultivated in a dry condition such a soil
became loose and dusty. There are individual farmers throughout the region
who have followed good methods of soil management and have found it
possible to prevent soil blowing on their farms, except where soil blown
from adjoining farms encroached upon their fields.” 7 The report of the
Great Plains Committee convened in 1936 by the House of Representatives
had identified economic forces as a major cause of the disaster.
The [First] World War and the following inflation pushed the price
of wheat to new high levels and caused a remarkable extension of the
area planted to this crop. When the price collapsed during the post-war
period Great Plains farmers continued to plant large wheat acreages
in a desperate endeavor to get money with which to pay debt charges,
dust blow