this is a story about the dust bowl for my US History class

1. The Dust Bowl by
Belinda Williams
Bad Times When the Land Blew Away

3. • In the 1930’s in the Great Depression the
wheat prices went down but the farmers kept
on growing it even though the government
said no to do that.

4. The whole thing was caused by drought and poor
farming practices!
The grass land in the middle of the country in the
1930’s was plowed up really deep and planted with
wheat too much when there was a lot of rain. Then a
drought came and as it got worse, they kept planting
but nothing would grow on that poor dirt now. And
guess what happened?

5. The soil blew into great big clouds of dust and it would
darken the sky. The children got something called dust
pneumonia and they could not breathe well.
The people could make any money and they had to
leave those places. Many of them travelled West.

6. They did this to themselves!
• The government told them they had to use soil conservation methods to
get the soil to hold down again. It was things like not planting the same
thing all the time. They put rows of trees around the fields to slow down
the wind.
• They re-plowed the ground into little mounds called furrows so the soil
would catch when it blew and not get down to the rock.

7. • In 1939 the drought ended and things got
better for the farmers.

8. The children now were very happy that they
could breathe outside and play again.