Agricultural History Review, Volume 66 Part 2 (2018), p. 303

Conserving the Dust Bowl explains how and why a few people with a combination of relevant knowledge, experience and political skill initiated and managed a huge but focused tree-planting programme intended to ameliorate the horrors of the 1930s Dust Bowl in six states of the USA. It is a welcome and well-researched account of the ethos, policy and practice by which 18,000 miles of wide shelterbelts were planted on 33,0000 farms, using 220 million trees, in only seven years. This book emphasizes how fulfilment also depended on practical but astute ‘grass-roots’ foresters, ecologists and soil experts who not only surveyed the land, but were influential in persuading farmers and local politicians of the necessity of the proposed work. The groups which carried out the actual tree-planting are included in the account. Contemporaries recognized the Dust Bowl as an environmental, economic and social disaster caused by loss of the soil-binding prairie grasses through intensive ploughing, cropping and overgrazing by cattle, by tree removal to make railway sleepers, a long drought and the collapse of world wheat markets.

The book starts with a useful description of the six Dust Bowl Prairie States – Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota – their low rainfall, soil infertility, hot, dry summers and lack of trees (except on their eastern margin). Europeans settled this inhospitable region when governments encouraged families to buy inexpensive farm lots whilst at the same time persuading railroad companies to extend their lines ever westward.

The words ‘Dust Bowl’ evoke a flat landscape to a distant horizon, black clouds of soil blowing as far as the Atlantic Ocean, and starving or dead stock animals lying out in the vicinity of small, isolated farmhouses. Into this scenario came President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot, the forestry advisor for Roosevelt’s private estate and director of the USA Forest Service, as well as Raphael Zon, director of a forest research station. Planning the Prairie States Forestry Project took them from 1933 to 1935, while from 1935 to 1942 they oversaw its fulfilment.

The idea of large-scale shelterbelt planting across six Dust Bowl states, forming a wide north-south corridor was probably Gifford Pinchot’s. The importance of tree-planting, particularly in treeless regions, had been recognized in the USA since the mid-nineteenth century.

Franklin D. Roosevelt (President, 1933–45) was a knowledgeable amateur forester with experience from his own estates. The ‘Forester President’ had strong feelings for the outdoors and took a pivotal role in the organization and fulfilment of the Project. He understood that fulfilling environmental, economic and social needs (with all three equally important) was critical to moving from the uncertainty of the Great Depression towards nationwide stability. President Roosevelt’s forceful personality raised enough money to start the Project, while professional forester colleagues worked to obtain political respect and support, which were initially lacking.

Conserving the Dust Bowl explains that the two years of planning included a detailed environmental survey of the six states, setting up tree nurseries, and spending time working with farmers and local politicians to convince them that their involvement would be beneficial. I was interested to learn that Forest Service staff carried out surveys of climates, soils, native vegetation and the results of previous tree planting. They recognized that knowledge of climate, soils and the tree species suited to each locality were vital preliminary data. They devised and advised on the length, breadth, shape and tree-spacing of shelterbelts.

The resulting 200-page scientific and technical report was in great demand by practitioners when farmers, unemployed people and Conservation Corps started to plant the shelterbelts. Planting was organized on a landscape grid, based on the meridians used for national survey of new states; then a local survey assessed prevailing winds, shelter and amenity for buildings, position of railroads and existing infrastructure.

There is a useful discussion of the ethos on which the so-called Shelterbelt Project was based: on the American realization of the importance of trees, of the equality of environmental matters with other national interests, and the acceptance of farmers’ duty as stewards of the land to conserve the landscape. The US Forest Service had been set up with resource conservation as one of its aims, which ensured that its staff recognized the ecological and social role of trees to the nation.

The authors discuss the practicalities of the Project: how local people carried out preparatory clearance and fencing on the planting sites before Conservation Corps or other groups started work. Having chosen fast-growing trees suitable for each locality, the benefits of the shelterbelts were visible as soon as 1940. The obvious effects of shelter – for people, buildings, and stock – were accepted. Long-term benefits to soils, to amenity, wildlife and game also accrued; the authors mention disadvantages too.

The text contains helpful black-and-white photographs and maps. There are sixteen colour photographs taken in Antelope County, Nebraska at the end of the book, which give a picture of the fragmented shelterbelt landscapes of today. Modern infrastructure such as wind turbines and pivotal watering systems have been imposed on the rectilinear shelterbelts, such that they have lost their 1930s/1940s integrity. This book finishes by suggesting how similar big ideas and good organization (based on suitable principles, policies and practice) could be relevant to solving or abating modern environmental crises.

There are detailed notes and references for each chapter. The book is a reasonable price. I found it stimulating and readable and I recommend it as an account of an historic approach to ameliorating human-made ecological, economic and social disasters.