Soils of this region had always been prone to dust storms in the past, but during the drought of the 1930’s they became far more vulnerable. Farmers had removed millions of acres of the natural grass sod to plant wheat during the previous twenty years. When the wheat failed to grow as the decade-long drought arrived in 1931, the soils were left exposed to the strong winds that annually sweep across the region. Millions of tons of blinding black dust would sweep across the Plains, turning plowed fields into sand dunes. There were a reported fourteen storms in 1932.
The CAFO Conundrun The iconic family farms of yesteryear are gone. The towering silos and red barns are replaced by industrial buildings more closely resembling warehouses than farms. The vast green fields of grazing cows has been replaced by lurid, cramped, pens with the animals being fed grains that they are unable to properly digest, as they wade through ankle deep swamps of their own manure. The hardworking, up-before-the-sun farmhand fell long ago to hordes of cheap, disposable, abused workers; the independent farm owner succumbed to the monopolous agricultural corporations that push them farther and farther into debt by contractually requiring ever-modern equipment, though never increasing salaries. Farms are no longer farms;
The rain causes loss of work for three months, living quarters were ruined, and the migrant worker’s sadness, suddenly turned into anger. “When the first rain started, the migrant people huddled in their tents, saying, it’ll soon be over, and asking, how long’s it likely to go on?” (554). Rain in the fields meant no work for the migrant workers. In the time period this book takes place in, the late 1930’s, working in the fields picking grapes, oranges, and cotton were in huge demand. Migrant workers lived on the plantation in either little shacks, or canvas tents, and worked more than 10 hours a day, for not much pay.
Geographic and Environmental Factors There are many reasons that people migrate to other locations. Sometimes it is due to weather, famine, war or violence, and fear of persecution to name a few. This is a discussion of two situations that lead to the expansion of the United States, the development and expansion of Egypt and the diffusion of potatoes from an early society to modern day use. Environmental or Physical Geographic Factors Irish Potato Famine In the mid-1800s The Irish potato famine lasted for six years and led to the death of over one million people and caused an additional one million people to leave Ireland. Ireland was among one of the poorest nations in the world during this time, the residents relied heavily on eating potatoes on a daily basis.
Migrant farmers added to the man-made financial problems were natural ones. A series of droughts in southern mid-western states like Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas led to failed harvests and dried-up land. Farmers
Once the migrants got through the entry barriers, the migrants found that their new life was almost as difficult as the one they had left behind. A lot of farms in California were owned by large companies and corporations. They were bigger than the farms in the plains, and the crops were like nothing that the migrants had ever seen before. Fields of wheat were replaced by crops of fruit, nuts and vegetables. Similar to the Joad family in John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath", about 40% of migrant farmers wound up in the San Joaquin Valley, picking fruit and cotton.
A double row of weather-beaten, false-fronted buildings, most of which had never been painted, and a few scattered dwellings, some of logs, most of stone.”(L’Amour p.168). Most of these towns share many similarities with Painted Rock in the way they are described or pictured. They have one, main street stretching down its center with tattered false-fronted buildings lining each side, which include buildings like a town hall, saloon, emporium and sheriffs office. Other characteristics of the old west are the numerous landscapes that extend across rough country. There are sweeping, wide-open plains, arid, barren desert wastelands, colossus, looming mountain ranges, rolling mountain foothills, canyons, rivers and overall an intensely rugged wilderness expanded across the wild frontier.
Cecilia Tinajero L. English H. The novel The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck is based on the hardships one family in Oklahoma faced during the dust bowl. The weather was harsh, there was a huge drought covering about ten states, and strong dust storms blew in. Because of the hard living conditions and the bank taking away their land, they had to move out. As the Joad family journey to California a lot of biblical allusion is assumed. In the bible there is the story about Noah's Ark.
These roots grew in dense tangled clumps that were difficult to cut. The “Sod Buster” was invented in 1830 by John Deere and was adopted by many homesteaders very quickly. The homesteaders planted the crops of maize and wheat that they brought with them from the Eastern states. These were suited to the mild and damp climate there but not on the Great Plains which means because of having no crops their life on the Plains would be impossible to sustain and also no crops meant there wasn’t any food for the homesteaders. Cattle and buffalo were also a problem.
These types of rocks are known as abraded rocks. Bedrock in desert areas becomes steep-sided with fat-topped buttes. When the wind moves through the desert area and deposits sediments, sand is deposited into a hill or a ridge. This type of landform is known as a dune. Dunes are asymmetric with a slight windward slope.