The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-04-22
LIVING HE'LL OF
SUMMER DREAD
OF DUST REGION
Fear Sitting Heat Will
Cause General Exodus
From Denuded Area.
BY FRANK M'NAUGHTON
United Press STAFF Correspondent
lConYrirht 1875. by rnited Pressl


Copyright. 1885. by United Press
OKLAHOMA CITY, April a.
What will the summer bring?
That question expresses the fear
of the future which encountered
everywhere during a 100O-mile jour-
ney through the ust-desolated
areas of Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas,
Kansas and New Mexico.
This country will be a living hell
when the hot winds of summer
come" said Joe T. Brown, whose
10,000-acre ranch near Boise City,
Okla, is as bare of vegetation as
the Sahara.
THE hot blasts Of July and Au-
gust and this eternally blowing
sand will drive us outfit they do
not kill us" he said.
Residents of the corner sections
of the five-State region are moving
out by the scores. Hundreds of 9TH
ers will follow in the next two
months. The hardy, pioneer spirit
that brought them to the high
plains country and kept them there
during years of bitter struggle final
ly has broken.
Summer temperatures mount as
high as 120 degrees in the dust
country. With the land denuded of
crops and grass and stripped to the
hard sub-soil, the plains will reflect
the sun like great mirror.
Four Years of Drought
There's more to the peoples de-
spair than just a few months of
dust storms. Before the dust, and
the cause of it, was the drought
four years without enough rain to
replenish wells or fill stock ponds.
Not for a dozen years had crops
failed four seasons in a row.
The people pray for rain, for only
rain and grass can save the land
But heavy rains coming too precipi-
lately merely would finish what the
dust storms started. Water ero-'
sion would make bad lands out of
now level plains. Loose silt blown
into drifts would be swept away by
the billions of tons. The rain must
be gentle if it is to save the land.
Statisticians have given up try
ing to estimate the amount of soil
blown away. In Garden City, Kan,
alone, relief workers removed 300
tons of dirt from the city streets,
and the cleaning job is not yet fin
iShed, and can not be until the dust
stops blowing.
Hardest Grass Killed
Few have any faith in govern
ment attempts to control the dust
Expenditure of billions of dollars
would have little effect, most ranch
ers believe.
Two years of propitious weather
might see the grass started again.
In Baca County agriculturists found
that even alpha grass, the hardest
known, had been killed by root eX-
posture. Buffalo grass, for which the
region originally was famous among
cattle men, has been either blown
out or Smothered
Cost of rehabilitating the land
and the people will be enormous.
Another rainless and windy summer
will depopulate the dust country.
Millions on millions of acres are
drifted with sand or silt too loose
for cultivation or are stripped of
top-soil.
Arkansas River Dried Up
During my tour of the five-state
region Travelled in one of the worst
storms of the year. The world
turned black as night with flying
sand. In another dust blizzard I
saw the soil run like water over the
plains and like blown snow whirl
into the sky and stream away.
On train trip north from Clay
ton, N. NJ, saw the land after the
wind had subsidized for the moment.
What I saw was utter desolation
from horizon to horizon.
All streams and most wells are
dry. The great Arkansas River is
a winding belt of sand