AMERICAN DROUGHT.

Waikato Times, Volume 120, Issue 19985, 8 September 1936, Page 4

AMERICAN DROUGHT.

AT WAR WITH NATURE. 550 COUNTIES AFFECTED. FERTILE LANDS BECOME DESERT. For the third time in six years there is drought in the American wheat belt. This year, as in 1930 and 1934, farmers in north-central and north-western States, as well as in many parts of the South, are forced to stand helplessly by while their crops wither under the fierce sun, while their livestock die of starvation and thirst on land which no longer holds pasture or water for their sustenance, says the New York correspondent of the London Times. The drought has affected 350 counties in 16 States, and those that have suffered worse are the Dakotas, Minnesota, Montana, Wyoming, Missouri, Nebraska and Kansas. It was estimated in the middle of this month that the drought had already cost the ■country £60,000,000. Many people, as they watch the scenes of desolation in the wheat belt, which had always been looked upon

as an inexhaustible granary ,_ feel that Nature is taking her revenge for The years of abuse which she has suffered at the hands of her exploiters. As the market for wheat increased the land was exploited more and more. Tiresome devices such as the rotation of crops were Ignored. The soil, after producing bumper crops for many years, began to dry up. Starvation of Emplrea. | In recent years it has been brought home to many Americans that much of the United States may become little better than a desert. It is estimated that 100,000,000 acres of once excellent land may never be cultivated again. The great winds which sweep the plains have removed the rich topsoil from a further 169,000,000 acre's, which are now covered with a fine dust that was once fertile earth. Another 789,000,000 acres have lost some of their topsoil and may soon lose it all. 1 Some Americans already begin to look fearfully at the dusty hills of China which once were fertile farmlands, at Mesopotamia, where a great civilisation flourished only to die because the land on which it was bailt could no longer support it. Their anxieties are not lessened by the fol-. lowing lines from a report recently issued by the National Resources Committee : Most of the territory occupied by the United States is not naturally suited for a permanent civilisation. By the normal processes of our farm-

ing, our mining, and our lumbering we create a desert. Americans need to realise that all other national hopes and aspirations are secondary to the question whether we can continue to eat. . . . Any nation whose land naturally turns Into a desert must either take measure to preserve the land or it will surely die. Mr Roosevelt’s Hopes. The moral contained in the last sentence quoted above has not been lost on Mr Roosevelt's Administration. In a moment of enthusiasm the President recently announced that his Government would put an end to drought. Mr Roosevelt and his advisers believe that it is possible to minimise its effects and to restore the barren wheat and cotton lands to fertility and usefulness. In the President’s words: “The economy of the country must be changed.” Before conserving the soil for the future the Administration must provide for the farmers who have been ruined by the present. In the regions which have suffered most severely it will be' necessary to move a part of the population—in extreme cases probably as much as a third of it. They are to remain farmers, but instead of raising wheat with a few cattle, sheep, and pigs to supplement the family income the Government intends that they shall raise livestock and forage crops as their staple product. The Great Plains are watered by rivers, which have their sources in the mountains. The GoveTnment plans to link the fertile river-lands with the barren and exhausted rangelands behind them. Like his Swiss coynterpart, the Middle-Western farmer will put his stock to pasture' on the uplands in summer and keep them in their stalls in winter. The Stubborn Farmer. In the hope that the danger of overgrazing may be avoided in future a number of grazing associations have already been formed whose members undertake that they will not put more livestock to pasture on the range than the land can reasonably support. Irrigation to restore the fertility of the range is being undertaken. Many of the 50.000 men from the drought regions who are now dependent on work relief have been set to building dams, in which Ihe spring rains and Ihe melting snow may be caught and retained, and over 1000 are now under construction. The lakes which were drained in former years and put I to wheal may soon return to their | natural condition. Much of the forest; land which has been cleared will be j replanted with trees, and there are j plans for a forest belt 100 miles wide across Ihe plains. The Federal Government hopes to restore the ; natural conditions which individual enterprise lias blindly destroyed in Hie past. In Hint hope' lies the danger to the whole scheme. The Western farmer remains an individualist, impatient of interference from Washington. He persists in believing that the recurrent droughts which have' ruined him are visit a | ions of Nature and that next year all will be well again. He will accept loans or grants, but is hard to persuade that Hie radical changes in his everyday life which the Government proposes are for his own good. The extent to which, under the •Constitution, the Federal Government may interfere with agriculture is still undefined, although the invalidation by the Supreme Court of the Agricultural Adjustment Act seems to show that such powers of Interference are

extremely limited. With a grim ' alternative before it Mr Roosevelt's j Administration intends to carrj through . its programmes as best it may. On its success may much or the future I of the United Status depend 1