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Spencer SnodgrassSection OneFarming on the Great PlainsPre-Dust BowlEven before the more modern-era of farming on the Great Plains, there were many problems that farmers faced while trying to produce crops. These problems consisted of Drought, Grasshoppers, and Early Frosts. So along with growing crops in gardens, the farmers also resorted to hunting on the Plains. Most farmers would hunt Bison and other plants that were on the Plains, and in addition to that they would gather resources from wild-plants for their meals. In their gardens they grew a big variety of beans and squash, but the most popular or consumed plant was maize. The people of the Plains lived year-to-year thriving off of what their gardens brought them through the processes of planting, hoeing, harvesting, and processing of their plants. They had developed many advanced forms of growing crops over time for example intercropping, which was growing their food with no real organization which let the plants benefit from one another therefore resulting in better plants. One example of how the plants helped each other was when beans returned essential nitrogen to soils depleted by corn production.Early Commercial AgricultureEarly on the Native Americans and other European immigrants in the area learned that some plants do better on the Plains due to the climate and the moisture. The people quickly learned that corn was the best or easiest crop to grow and harvest. Methods that European farmers knew and practiced were mostly ones that they had learned and practiced with the Native Americans. They also developed their own methods of making the land ready for growing crops such as the plow, which was capable of turning over the thick sod on the prairie. After much advancement they were able to cultivate other crops such as Wheat and Flax at the same rate as Corn. Also as time went on they began experimenting with different types of crops, like Winter Wheat which was planted in the late Fall and wouldn’t start growing until Spring.DroughtsThe Droughts on the Great Plains brought many problems for the farmers that were trying to grow crops. The farmers would have to make an extra effort to time the cultivation and growing of their plants so the growing wasn’t a failure and so their settlements could live on. Often times the farmers had difficulty choosing which crops to grow due to their limited knowledge of the weather. Sometimes they would base what they wanted to grow on what they had success with in the past in other areas. This resulted in farmers having good years with certain crops and others wouldn’t do as well. The Dust-BowlThe time of known as the “Dust-Bowl” was caused my long periods of severe drought, which caused the soil to lose its moisture and become a dust-like substance. So when the farmers tried to plow this land to grow new crops they were very unsuccessful and it ended up blowing away creating many huge dust-storms which made a period of depression pass over about 100,000,000 acres of the Great Plains. Resources: TherrienSection TwoGeographic ProfileClimate and elevationThe Great Plains had a very unique ecosystem, relying heavily on the grasses to keep everything together. The climate is very traditional by getting colder during the winter months and hotter during the summer months. During summer the temperature stays around 70 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit. In the winter the temperature is usually around 30 and 40 degrees Fahrenheit. The weather can be very unpredictable on the Great Plains, when the northern dry air meets the southern moist air they can combine to create very severe thunderstorms; sometimes causing massive damage. The Great Plains have an elevation of about one thousand five hundred feet above sea level. Growing Seasons and precipitationMost of the Great Plains precipitation comes from the Gulf of Mexico. Areas in the southeastern portion of the plains receive more than forty inches of rain fall annually. But in the northern regions it decreases to less than fourteen inches of rain fall annually. The main crop crown on the Great Plains is corn. The major harvest seasons usually began in mid-august, and ended in late-October. Another popular crop grown was wheat; the farmer’s favorite variety to grow was soft winter wheat. This was brought to areas like Kansas by people from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Missouri. Due to the lack of rain in some parts of the plains, these crops rely heavily on irrigation. All the water is used for the crops in taken from a giant underwater lake called the Ogallala aquifer. The aquifer stretches across all or portions of eight states including South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas. Pre American vegetation and wildlifeThe most popular animal know on the Great Plains was the bison. It was estimated that around 50 million bison once roamed the plains. This number greatly decreased due to Americans hunting them almost to extinction for their hides right after the civil war in the eighteen hundreds. Elk, white-tailed deer, mule deer, and the pronghorn antelope, the fastest land animal in North America and one of the fastest in the world also inhabit the plains. There were also various rodents, birds, and carnivores that called the plains home. The Great Plains vegetation is dominated by grasses; tall grass and medium grass are in the east while short grass and bunch grass are in the west. These grasslands also include plants such as the yucca and the prickly pear cactus. Much of these grasslands however have been removed for agriculture or grassing land for cattle. In result of this many plants and animals have died off or become very rare. Websites: I used this site for the first section I used this site for the growing seasons section. I used this site for growing seasons section. I used this site for pre american section.Emma TrayteSection threeThe Plains IndianThe Plains Indians, the earliest residents of not only the United States, have a history of almost forty thousand years. Residents of The Great Plains, both nomadic and sedentary, these peoples were sophisticated hunters, productive farmers, and innovative craftsmen. The names Lakota Sioux, Crow, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Apache, and Shoshone, are well known Native American tribes; but also inhabitants of this area wre the Mandans, The Hidatsas, the Arkiras, Assinoboines, Plains Crees, Kiowas, Comanches and many others that, through wars, treaties, take-overs, and simple migration and separation combined and divided, to form hundreds of tribes. Some of these tribes are old enough to have recorded histories and legends as far back to remember the drastic climate change that occurred around 11,500 BC. This was a time when precipitation declined and the range of annual temperatures increased greatly. This eventually led to the extinction of many of the regions larger animals such as mammoths, camels and horses. Bison however were able to resurge, smaller and more mobile in order to endure the drier climate, and became the Plains Indians main food source along with deer and elk.Around his time, hunters switched from the Clovis-style spear point to the smaller Folsom point, and began the more sophisticated practice of group hunting. A successful strategy that developed was known as the great “buffalo jumps” where a group of hunters cause a heard of bison to stampede. They then directed them toward a sort of manmade funnel and then off a large cliff. Besides being accomplished hunters, the tribes that settled down became quite adept at farming as well; planting corn beans and squash, while continuing to hunt bison between planting and harvesting seasons. Pottery also became an important craft to those who settled and was a commodity in the intricate trade routes that developed between tribes. Crops, dried meant, flint, hides and tools as well as many cultural aspects, like songs and dances, were widely traded between different tribal groups. In the 16th century, with the arrival of the Spanish, horses were reintroduced in to the area, greatly affecting the life of the nomadic tribes. Horses became a commodity, widely traded and symbols of power. With the English came guns and other new technology as well, but what affected the Plains Indians the most with the arrival of Europeans was disease. Small pox, measles, and whooping cough for example contributed to the reduction of the Arikaras tribe by almost eighty percent. Nomadic tribes were slightly less affected due to their distance and reduced contact with the invaders. The effects of the Europeans were small in comparison to those of the American settlers a few hundred years later. American migrants used old Indian trails to cross the country, scaring the land, driving away the bison, polluting the water (with diseases like cholera), stripping woods and destroying the grasslands. Then came the transcontinental railroad, the Homestead Act of 1864, the introduction of reservations, the reductions of reservations and intense conflict between natives and settlers. Some tribes began resorting to raids of live stalk in order to compensate for the lost game; settlers began striking back and the situation escalated until the government was forced to intervene. This unfortunately was not settled in favor of Native Americans and as history shows us, it has taken over a hundred years to return to even a decimal percent of the lives these people lived for thousands of years before. Resources: Cordell SchlinkerSection fourNicole WilsonSection fiveThe Ogallala AquiferThe Ogallala Aquifer was a deep underground water supply that stretches across all or portions of eight states generally from north to south to include South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas and underlies about 174,000 square miles. It produced water for wells and farming. However, one of their biggest problems was that the drought made people used water more and in bigger amounts because the plants were dying, and people were drinking more and using so much more water that it caused the Ogallala Aquifer to finally deplete.A proposal with recommendation:The Ogallala Aquifer was very important to the farming industry because it provided water for the crops for them to grow. It depleted really fast when the drought came and people then didn’t know how to prevent it from depleting so they just kept using more water in panic to try and grow their crops. What they could have done was plant crops that use less water to grow. An example of such crops is cacti and plants with fat, water retaining leaves. These plants can grow in extreme conditions such as a drought, and only need little water. Another thing they could have done was drill less holes in the Ogallala Aquifer and have fewer wells that can be dried out by the drought. Since the drought can’t penetrate deep under the ground, it would have not have depleted so fast. Also, if they dig deeper, they might be able to find richer soil by the water source instead of dust. This would be good for plants and crops that can grow underground such as potatoes, and edible roots. This way the roots can reach deeper down and reach a richer soil with water. Since the weather was so dry and hot during the drought, people used too much water for personal intakes. They could have saved more water by not using so much for household things such as clothe washing, considering the dust is just going to saturate the clothing again in no time at all. ................
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