Well today marks the anniversary of the dust bowl!

Well today, May 8th, marks the 78th anniversary of the dust bowl. It was a time during which they did not have very much different weather than we have been having this year. It was dry just as it has been this year-- we have only had one appreciable rain since the last week of March here in deep Southern Illinois.

Now I was not alive in 1934 and I have never inquired to my grandfather and grandmother to see what they experienced in Bloomington and Indianapolis respectively. But I know from the stories and accounts of events that transpired seventy eight years ago that a cloud of dust must have passed over them. In fact said cloud of dust made it all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. But this brings up a much greater question-- what set the stage for the dust bowl to happen in the first place? Well you see the country was going through a period of major expansion. And in order to feed all the people that we housed back then, the farmers cleared about every square inch that they could and brought it under tillage.

Back then tillage was much different than it is today. There was no such thing as no-till, minimum til, or conservation tillage. When they decided to start tilling a piece of ground they did it by means of a moldboard plow and a disk. All of this tillage disrupted the ground so and gave rise to the very dust that I am speaking of.

How did we stop the conditions that gave rise to the dust bowl? Furthermore, how were these changes implemented?

Well much to the shagrin of my conservative and libertarian friends, I must say that Franklin Deleanore Roosevelt implemented policies through the Drought Relief Service and the Soil Conservation Service which were established by him and the congress; the later establishing conservation practices by county or districts which enabled enforcement of said practices.

It was such through said Districts or Agencies that implemented things such as fence rows, hedge rows, and terracing which gradually but greatly reduced the soil erosion from wind as well as rain. Today most farming is done either by no till or minimum tillage, thus the problem is alleviated. But todays practices give rise to even more problems-- such as honey bees disappearing and allergic reactions to GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms). But at least we have not seen a dust bowl on the size of the ones we had back in the 1930s!

And just for your listening enjoyment here is FDR in one of his historic fire side chats with the nation about what he saw while touring the drought stricken states back in 1934 at the height of the dust bowl. I say at the height because it actually lasted like eight years!