Volume 18 , Issue 25

1937 - Difficult Task Ahead Of Federal Coordinator In the Dust Bowl Area

This is what Iola Register, in Iola, Kansas, dated 11 June 1937, Friday, page 1, reported on the dust bowl area. This was the second of two articles on current conditions in the dust bowl compiled in a 1,000 mile tour through that area by auto, train, freight car and afoot as written by Paul D. Shoemaker.

Found on Newspapers.com

Amarillo, Tex., June 11 (1937) -- The toughest job in the dust bowl, the nation's agricultural problem area, rested on the 35 year old shoulders of Roy I. Kimmel, assigned by Secretary Wallace to coordinate the government's efforts to restore the vast acreage to proper use.

Everywhere in the area people admitted thousand of acres should never have been pierced by the plow.

In his new assignment Kimmel would undertake to encourage communities, districts and counties to initiate land going programs as provided under enabling laws passed by the five states. If farmers in an area decide certain lands should be restored to grass, or that other lands should be seeded to wind-resistant crops, and they so vote, it becomes compulsory.

It was a farmer self-governing program, with government agencies standing by willing to advise and aid.

Technicians of the soil conservation service, the resettlement administration, the AAA, the extension service, experiment stations and state colleges of agriculture, would be brought together under Kimmel's direction to study ways and means of strengthening the program and to prevent overlapping of activities. The soil conservation service throughout 102 counties had numerous projects where farmer may observe recommend land use practices.

Gradually farmers were beginning to follow the recommended land uses, but there were many complaints against the owner unwilling to cooperate because "he has an idea the government is trying to boss him" and the so-called "suitcase farmer," the man who owned large acreage, but lives in the city and neglects it when the going gets tough. The zoning laws provided that neglected and mistreated land could be forced into proper use by the local authority and the cost charged against the owner.

Rainfall of the last three weeks found thousands of acres unprepared to receive it. Much moisture which should have been conserved in the subsoil, was lost through runoff. Rivers and creeks filled to capacity. In some instances serious water erosion resulted.

H. H. Fennell, regional director for the soil conservation service said, "Moisture alone is not enough to halt the dust storms."

"Even with normal moisture, this is true, because we also have normal wind - drying wind - and with it a certain amount of evaporation. If the water is allowed to run off the field and pastures, it is not available for the crops and grasses that are needed to protect the soil from the ravages of wind erosion."

Fennell said terracing, contour cultivation, strip cropping, pasture furrowing, listing, artificial lakes, and tree planting must be pursued.

In 1937 some wheat would be harvested in the bowl that year. Virtually all the acreage in a dozen counties in corners of Oklahoma, Colorado, Texas, Kansas, and New Mexico had been abandoned, but a small portion of the total acreage may yield three or four bushels to the acre. This is the heart of the bowl. Outside this area, in 90 other counties of the same five states, prospects are better in some sections and some growers on the outer edge believed they would make eight to ten bushels an acre. Fields which survived damage during the winter and early spring by smothering or cutting as dust storms swept over them, suffered for want of moisture several weeks before May rains came.

Farmers expressed their disappointment that they did not get a bumper crop that year. They took it stoically. It wasn't the first time they had their hopes dashed. They have't had a wheat crop cinco 1931.

Now they were turning to row crops of sorghums, kafir, milo maize, broom corn, millet, and others, listing their land preparatory to planting. The rains had encouraged them. They need to grow something on the land, a cover of some sort. Grain and feed crops were in demand to finish cattle, and the stubbles, left after harvesting, helped to hold the soil in place.

C. L. Nix, Stevens county commissioner and a Kansas farmer for 30 years, said he thought farmers in the area would be better off if they raised row crops and forgot about wheat.

Nix said, "I know a lot of farmers who make a little money raising row crops and then lost it trying to grow wheat. They always hope to hit a bumper year and another thing - raising row crops requires about three times more work than wheat. This county looks pretty bad, I don't know what we would have done if the government hadn't aided us."

Why do farmers stay in the dust bowl?

Only the more harfyhave stayed. A recent survey conducted by the resettlement administration brought forth the estimate that 33,000 people left farms in the last four years, following the dirty thirties, leaving approximately 207,000 in the area. Mortgages on many of the abandoned farms were for greater amounts than could be realized if a buyer could be found.

Most of those remaining did not want to leave everything they had accumulated in a lifetime. They still had faith in the country and scoff at the predictions some outsiders that the area is destined to become a desert. They did not think fertility of the soil had been hurt, even though tons and tons had blown away.

"Just give us more of this rain," they say.

But behind it all there was another hope - hope that underneath their acres there may be deposits of petroleum and gas, or possibly both. There were producing oil and gas wells within the bowl and nearby.

Grazing lands had benefited by the rains. The grass was green and growing and cattle looked fat and sleek. Range cattle had learned about dust storms. Went he dusters first came the cattle drifted with the wind and dust. Now they turn their tails in the direction from which the duster is blowing and send still until it passes. Walter Irwin, Amarillo automobile dealer, stated, "Things don't look so good now, but come back in a couple of months. You won't be able to recognize the country. These rains, you know."
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