The document summarizes the problems faced by early farmers on the Great Plains and some of the solutions developed. The major problems included plowing the hard soil, lack of water and timber, threats from insects and weather. Solutions that helped were steel plows, drought-resistant wheat, dry farming techniques, windmills, sod homes, barbed wire fencing, and new farm machinery - though extreme weather and insects continued to pose challenges.
2. Problems:
• Ploughing the land
• Growing crops
• Lack of water
• Lack of timber
• Farm machinery
• Crops getting
trampled
• Plagues of insects
• Extreme weather
3. Tools In the beginning farmers had to do
almost everything by hand. The work
was physically hard and never ending.
Most homesteaders were to poor to
buy equipment to help them farm, but
even if they could afford new
machinery, there was little technology in
the 1860s and 1870s.
Most of the land on the
Plains was like concrete
because it had never been
ploughed before. In 1837, an
Illinois blacksmith named
John Deere created a steel
plough. The ‘sodbuster’
plough was soon used by
almost all homesteaders
because it could plough
through the hard soil easily.
4. Farm Machinery
Other farm equipment such as the reaper (to cut
and thresh the wheat much faster), the spring spring-tooth harrow
tooth harrow (to prepare the soil), the grain
drill (to plant the seed), the corn binder made
farm work much easier and quicker for the
homesteaders.
In 1830, producing a bushel of grain took about
183 minutes. By 1900, with the use of these
machines, it took only 10 minutes.
reaper machine
The federal government also supported farmers by
financing agricultural education.
• The Morill Act of 1862 gave federal land to
states to help finance agricultural colleges.
• The Hatch Act of 1887 set up experimental
stations to inform farmers of new developments in
agriculture.
5. Lack of Water
Homesteaders were lucky if they lived near a watering hole, river, or stream. Those
who did not had to collect water in buckets by hand several times a day and the
journey to get the water could be many miles. By 1870s, however, wind driven
pumps were available to the homesteaders for $25, which provided a constant supply
of water to the farmers.
The Plains were not ideally suited to grow crops.
The annual rainfall averaged about 38cms and rain
usually fell during the hot summer months but the
sun quickly evaporated any standing water.
6. Lack of Water
Homesteaders needed a way to trap the rainfall in the soil before it was
lost. They used a technique called “dry farming”. Every time it rained or
snowed, the homesteaders ploughed their land.
This left a thin
layer of soil on
Dry Farming top of the newly
fallen rain which
was trapped
underneath. The
water was then
available for use
when the new
crop was
planted in the
spring.
7. Growing Crops
Turkey Red Wheat
The homesteaders recognized that they
could not grow crops that were unsuited
to the climate of the Plains. They needed
crops that could cope with the extreme
temperatures and the lack of rainfall. In
1874, Mennonites from Russia started to
move onto the Plains. They brought crops
such as Turkey Red Wheat with them.
This hardy winter variety of wheat
flourished on the Plains.
8. Lack of Water
Windmills
In 1874, Daniel Halliday perfected wind pump technology suitable for the
Plains. A well was dug anywhere from 30-120 feet below the ground,
with a high powered drill to reach the water. A windmill was then built
above the well that harnessed the power of the wind to pump a constant
supply of water for the homesteader. Although this was very expensive
at first, the price fell to $25.00 by 1890.
9. Lack of Timber
Sod Homes
To compensate for the lack of
timber on the plains, the
homesteaders used sod (or grass)
cut from the Plains as bricks to build
their houses and called them
“soddies.”
Soddies were dirty, drafty, and leaked
whenever it rained. The walls and floor were Mud fell off the ceiling into the homesteaders’
infested with lice (and other varmits), which cooking pots and germs were rampant.
crawled over the homesteaders as they slept.
10. Lack of Timber
Fuel Shortage
Homesteaders learned the idea of using buffalo
chips for fuel from the Native Americans.
Buffalo dung was a relatively inefficient fuel and
had to be collected on a continual basis.
Usually gathering
Buffalo Chips the chips from the
open Plains was
the job of the
women and had to
be brought back in
a cart or
wheelbarrow.
11. Crops Trampled
The many herds of stray buffalo and cattle
on the Plains often trampled farmers’ crops.
The invention of barbed wire by Joseph Glidden
in 1874 helped homesteaders fence off their
land, turning the open plains into a series of
fenced in ranches. It was cheap, easy to use, but
often led to conflict (sometimes called ‘range
wars’) between farmers and ranchers.
12. Swarms of Insects
There was no solution to the swarms of
grasshoppers and locusts (until the 1900s
when chemical companies started to mass
produce pesticides). Homesteaders lived in
fear of a grasshopper or locust invasion, as
they knew the devastation it would cause
and they knew they could not protect their
crops. After an insect swarm, many farmers
were left penniless and were forced to
appeal to state governments for help.
13. In July of 1874, homesteaders
Settlers raking grasshoppers into piles to burn them.
in Kansas experienced a
significant drought, but they
would soon experience
something much more
devastating....
Without warning, millions of
grasshoppers descended on
the prairies from the Dakotas
to Texas. The insects arrived in
swarms so large they blocked
out the sun and sounded like a
.
rainstorm. Crops were eaten
out of the ground, as well as
the wool from live sheep and
clothing off people's backs.
Paper, tree bark and even
wooden tool handles were
devoured.
Hoppers were reported to have been several inches deep on the ground and locomotives could not get
traction because the insects made the rails too slippery.
As a whole, Kansans refused to be defeated. The settlers did their best to stop the hoppers by raking them
into piles, like leaves, and burning them but these efforts were in vain because of the sheer numbers of the
pests. Inventive citizens built hopper dozers or grasshopper harvesters to combat future visitations. The
hoppers usually stayed from two days to a week and then left as they had come, on the wind.
From the Kansas Historical Society
http://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/grasshopper-plague-of-1874/12070.
14. Extreme Weather
Tornadoes & Harsh Winters
The Plains experienced massive fluctuations in temperature as part of the normal
weather cycle. Winters were long with freezing temperatures and summers were
extremely hot, which made it hard to stay warm in the winter and impossible to stay
cool in the summer. Not only did the extreme temperatures make it hard to grow
crops, factors such as dust storms, brush fires, tornadoes, and high winds made the
Plains a dangerous and unpleasant place to live.
16. Extreme Weather
Fire
The dry Plains provided the perfect conditions for fires to start. The long hot
summers left the prairie grass and the homesteaders’ crops bone dry. Accidental
fires started and unless it could be stopped quickly by beating, it spread rapidly
leading to disaster. Without any water to put out the fire, the homesteaders were
forced to hide in their sod houses until the crops were destroyed and the fire died.
17. Summary
Problems Solutions
1. Ploughing the land 1. Deere’s ‘Sodbuster Plough’
2. Growing crops 2. Turkey Red What
3. Lack of water 3. Dry Farming & Windmills/Pumps
4. Lack of timber 4. Sod homes, buffalo chips
5. Farm machinery 5. Mechanized tools
6. Crops getting 6. Barbed wire
trampled
7. Plagues of insects 7. No Solution
8. Extreme weather 8. No Solution
