The Great Black Blizzard - farming techniques and the Dust Bowl of the1930s - Dave's Garden

On November 11, 1933, the "Great Black Blizzard" occurred. It was the first great dust storm in Great Plains.

On November 11, 1933, the first giant dust storm, dubbed "The Great Black Blizzard," hit the Great Plains. What caused this phenomenon and the increasingly frequent dust storms of the 1930s in the United States? Were they preventable, predictable, man-made, or flukes of nature? A look at United States history from a gardener's perspective can shed some interesting light. (NB: this is NOT your U.S. history class from high school!)

A Brown Desert?

In the latter parts of the nineteenth century, especially the 1860s and 1870s, the middle part of the North American continent was considered to be a "Brown Desert." Land stretched for hundreds of miles from the great Mississippi River to the mighty Rocky Mountains with no reliable sources of water. Settlers went north to Oregon and Washington but were afraid to try their hands at farming the Great Plains of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, Colorado and New Mexico. Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act into law (the same day as he signed the Emancipation Proclamation) in 1862.

Then reports came back from settlers following the Oregon Trail that the Brown Desert had become green! An extended period of drought had been replaced by a temporary period of raininess. New territories were opened up for settlement and land was virtually given away by the U.S. government. Eager settlers poured past the Mississippi into areas that had never ever been farmed. It was erroneously believed that plowing caused rain. Of course, it was later learned that the topsoil was anchored by tall drought-tolerant prairie grasses with deep roots (see these related Dave's Garden articles) which could reach the Ogalalla Aquifer below in times of little rain. This topsoil, by virtue of being virgin land, had a certain intrinsic fertility. However, once that was used, it was simply a layer of dust with no connection to the aquifer deep beneath, which had watered the prairie in past dry periods.

Over-farming

The stage was set. Thousands of acres of uncultivated, never-before farmed land. An uncharacteristically rainy period, giving rise to new fertility on the Great American Desert. And thousands of settlers from all over the world eager to farm their 160 acres and build their houses. One more factor soon entered the equation: as the 20th century progressed, hostilities broke out in Europe, sending the price of wheat higher than ever before. This very straight long rows of dirt was just one more incentive to plant more wheat than ever!

In Kansas, says the State History Timeline of Kansas, "the previously uncultivated land (thousands of acres), planted to supply warring nations of Europe during World War I, was allowed to lay fallow during the recession of the 1920s, and became part of the "dust bowl" of the 1930s." Similar situations were happening all over the Great Plains. If not left fallow, yields from the land were dropping precipitously. And in the 1930s, the rainy period was replaced by a windy extended drought. (Or maybe the unusual rainy period had reverted to its normal hot, windy and dry.)

Hot and Windy

The deep-rooted perennial prairie grasses had been replaced by annual crops like wheat, planted in long, long straight rows. When the winds came, they blew straight along the rows, taking the dry dusty top layer with them, and building up into dust storms. There were 14 dust storms reported in 1932 and 38 in 1933. The first of the giant dust storms happened on Armistice Day, 1933, November 11. The sunlight was obliterated for the day, leaving a darkness blacker than night. Drifts of dust as deep as 6 feet high obscured vehicles and sheds. This so-called "Great Black Blizzard" occured in South Dakota. Dust blew all the way to Chicago and there were red snow storms in New England that year! This event destroyed farms all the way from the Texas Panhandle up to Canada."