DROUGHT ON THE PRAIRIES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22464, 7 July 1936, Page 8

DROUGHT ON THE PRAIRIES

Drought is again afflicting enormous areas on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains and the Western Great Plains of the United States. The trouble is being felt as far south as Texas, on the Gulf of Mexico, but is most severe this season in the north - western States on the Canadian border. One report mentioned that, lack of moisture was also affecting wheat crops across the border, in the three prairie Provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. Grain markets in Winnipeg, Chicago and Liverpool have reacted sharply to these reports. The whole of this western area has been suffering from a gradual decline in rainfall spread over the last 25 years. The position is more acute in some seasons, the drought in 1934 being particularly severe. The hard frosts of winter and the pitiless summer sun are fast reducing enormous areas to desert. The Americans already refer to them collectively as the " dust bowl." Thousands of farmers have been ruined and their lands are now depopulated. Whether better rainfalls return or not, Americans have been forced to the conclusion that much of this country should never have been used for agriculture. The war and high prices for wheat caused the exploitation of marginal lands. The plough appeared in a new role, the agent of destruction, tearing up the grasses that bound the soil. The land was bereft of cover from the extreme fury of the elements in this continental climate. To-day the nation is behind President Roosevelt in his vast campaign for soil conservation. The main effort is being directed to reclothing these barren lands with the grasses of which they were so wantonly denuded. Large areas are turning from an agricultural to a pastoral economy, from wheat and maize to cattle and sheep, a reversion not without significance to New Zealand.