Mexico Missouri message. (Mexico, Audrain County, Mo.) 1899-1918, 1915-04-08
RAIN FALL
VS.. DROUTH

ust. Ii there had been six inches of
rain last year in July and six in Aug
ust in Audrain County, there would
have been produced in this County
alone at least five millions more of
commodities than were produced. In
the entire state of Missouri there
would have been produced perhaps
five hundred millions more. If we
estimate the same amount for Kansas,
the same amount for Oklahoma and
three times this amount for Texas and
other stricken territory, we have the
grand total of three billions that were
lost last year simply for the lack of
rain. Let us suppose that this esti-
mate is three times too high, thus re-
ducing the amount to one billion. If
this amount had been added to our
product of last year the railroads
would have earned dividends in car
rying the added commodities, banks
would have had greater deposits, labor
would have 'been employed more
steadily and a much greater general
material prosperity would have re-
suited.
Why should the territory bounded
by the north line of Missouri extend
ed west and the line of the Mississippi
extended south, with perhaps south
ern Illinois and western Kentucky and
Tennessee thrown in, be periodically
stricken with drouth when north of
the north line of Missouri, and espec-
tally north of the north line of Iowa,
no such thing as blighting drouth
has ever been known?
The simple reason is that as we go
from Missouri north we approach ter
ritory which is under the influence of
the Great Lakes, and a territory
throughout which the temperature
would average many degrees lower
than the temperature south and west
of Missouri during the summer
months, and for that reason the mois-
ture is not pulled out of the groundand
blown away. Missouri and the South
west, however, can be saved.
There are some very simple prin-
ciples in the matter of rain produc-
ton, as any student of physical geo.
graphy knows. The heavy summer
rains in Missouri are produced as fol-
lows. A steady south or southeast
wind blows for three or four days or
a week, driving moisture-laden air
from the lower attitudes of Missouri
and the South to the higher attitudes
of Kansas, Nebraska and the North
west. This moisture-laden air comes
in contact with cold upper air cur
rents, condensation is produced and
precipitation or rain results, the cold
air currents in the meantime getting
the mastery and we have the phen-
omena of a heavy cloud coming up in
the northwest, lightning all over it's
front and heavy rain driven by
northwest wind.
This south or southeast wind would
not bring us the moisture that pro-
duces rain unless it came over rivers
or moist land. And so it is that our
southwest wind, coming from the
great stretches of Texas, Oklahoma
and Kansas territory that is. very
poorly watered by natural streams,
comes to us, not moisture-laden, but
dry and ready to drink up whatever
moisture there is in our state. All
hot winds are born in southern Kan
sas, Oklahoma, Texas and the South
west.
The only way for us to be saved
from this drouth-producing southwest
wind is to hit upon a plan of having
surface water in ponds, reservoirs
and lakes, systematically arranged
and spread over the entire country in
GLIDING Missouri, southern Illinois,
Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma and
Texas. If the proportion of one acre
in twenty were kept in a permanent
water surface over this territory
stretching from the north line of Mis-
souri, to the Rio Grande, the winds
coming from the southwest would be
moisture-laden till they reached Mis-
souri, and farther north. And, as the
temperatures in the southwest are
higher than the temperature
would be as the wind adj
vanced northeast, the moisture in
these winds from the southwest would