The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-08-19
14O YEARS MAY F..
Be REQUIRED To
RESTORE PLAINS
State and Nation Are Facing
StupendouS Task to
End Dust Threat.
BY WILLIAM F. COLLINS
Times Special Writer

part of the problem that confronts
the nation. AS We are faced with
its many riddles the nation is faced
with a msgnified, jig-sawed picture
demanding solution. We have in
this state most of the elements OF
the puzzle.
Slowly and with painful effort we
have pushed the pieces about trying
to make them fit into a partial
answer at least, but for some rea-
son or other We have not yet found
the proper combination. Impatience
will not accomplish results. 1t took
10 years of patient ignorance to
bring about the destruction we find
today 1t will take twice 10 to COR
rect it, and it may be that we will
labor for the first so years of it III
the process of trial and error.
Why We Should Worry About 1t
The critics of the program can
call that patient ignorance also but
at least they can give the conServa-
zionist the benefit of a doubt by
making due allowance for the mag
nitude of the problem.
Why should we worry about it at
all? The states are inherently pros
porous. There are billions of feet
of timber left in the Northwest, bill
lions of tons of iron ore, billions Of
tons of coal, barrels of oil, enough
we are told to last for generations
of all these things and more, so why
work up blood pressure about 1t?
I can't answer that question in
detail. but I can tell you what 1
have seen and give you the conclu-
sions arrived at and from that as a
starting point you can draw your
own conclusions.
Pays Visit to Dust Area
This year, I have taken the cp-
portunity to spend time in the
midtown West. Five months ago
the West was news. Bleary clouds
of dust were blowing midnight
clouds of waste and destruction
across the old buffalo sod plains
where my boyhood was spent. The
pity of it is that it took the old
timers out there by surprise. In
spite Of a prediction made by gov
eminent experts on erosion that
this thing would happen to them
when a certain cycle of drought
years came to pass, experts, es-
pecially those who specialize in pre-
dictions, are bipedS who merit rld1-
cule when they run counter to the
accepted way of doing things.
If you have an old atlas in the
family, brush off the dust and turn
to that area in the pages marked
by the Platte on the north and the
Republican on the south. In the
one I studied, it is shaded green and
states; Hunting, Cattle, Hides" In
the legend I find: This vast terri
tory is covered with buffalo grass
that supports vast herds Of the
shaggy buffalo, the stately elk and
the fleet antelope"
Peerless Grazing Lands
NV uncle, an Aberdonian Scot,
settled his family in Saunders Coun-
ty and broke out his fields with an
eight-horse team hitched to single
ten-inch bottom ploW. 1t took
that much horse power to break
through and turn over the why
prairie sodS that were so familiar
to me before the era of dust. AS
grazing lands they we're without
peer unless we compare them with
the high grass lands of African
Keyna. 1t was a cattle country
just as southern Indiana was a
timber country without comparison
in North America.
A grain belt must have at least
20 inches of rainfall year and it
must be evenly distributed to meet
the requirements of growing crop.
In the dust belt there is no such
rainfall and turning it into grain
producing belt did not accomplish
that miracle.
When the protecting cover Of
buffalo sod was turned under and
decayed, finally to become a part
of the surface soil; when year fol-
lowing year the farmers reduced the
surface W d OQSJ lnQlOA4 W OdNC
the moisture the inevitable and
natural result of their mistake
awaited only a combination of an
extended drought accompanied by
wind. The wind is always there,
the drought is cyclic.
Old Timer Tells Story
In the words of an old timer out
in western Kansas who apparently
is awake to the tragedy of their
mistakes, I find the summary to
this article. He said: Il came out
here with my grand-dad and we
run cattle for 40 years. Made
money at it, too, but when the
settlers" came in, they wanted
wheat and corn and they bought
up the range.
Somebody invented barbed
wire fence and that spelled the
end of the cattle business for us.
It's always blowed out here, one
place down on the Republican I've
been it blows the shade right out
from under the cotton woods every
spring but We never noticed it much
except as an inconvenience when
we stoppde to rest. We never paid
no attention to it till last year.
Some fellers had gone out where
it don't rain but once a year and
durn little at that and started dry
farming for wheat and they made
a go Of it. Along about the winter
of '33 there wasn't any snow and
next spring it didn't rain, then
when the winds came up, hell bust
ed loose. guess them fellers
bowed up with the dust, I see a
lot of them going back to Missouri
with what they have left in tow
sack.
NO, I can't answer your ques-
ton what's to be done about get
ting buffalo grass started again,
amt never heard of no seed store
that ca1Ic II II oipsf Iic4aJ II, fba