Warm Up - Please do now Locate The Great Plains. What does this tell you about the weather and how it might affect farming?

1. WHY WOULD PEOPLE TAKE ON THE CHALLENGES OF LIFE IN THE WEST? 2. WHAT ENCOURAGED SETTLERS TO MOVE WEST TO THE GREAT PLAINS? 3. WHAT WAS THE RELATIONSHIP LIKE BETWEEN NEW SETTLERS AND THOSE ALREADY LIVING ON THE PLAINS? Lesson Objectives

2-2 Farming The Plains

Beginning of Settlement Spurred by construction of railroads RR sold land at low prices to prospective settlers Pamphlets and posters spread the news across Europe and America – cheap land for anyone willing to move. Homestead Act – 1862 – offered 160 acres to anyone willing to live on and farm the land for five years. Men, single women and widows – ½ million farms were started.

1 Stop – discuss Connect from previous section Developments that attracted settlers to go west. Explain each illustration Free Land

The Wheat Belt

Farm Life Life was hard – Sod buster – Bitter cold winters - blizzards – Hot blazing summers – Prairie fires – grasshoppers Men and boys – worked fields Women and girls – closer to house – Vegetable gardens, raised chickens and a cow, cooked, sewed, made butter, soap and candles, canned vegetables Spring planting and autumn harvest – everyone went to fields. To get water – wells 100 feet deep and operate pump by hand

Sod Houses Few trees – did not build wooden houses Used sod – pieces of grass with attached roots and dirt cut into strips Walls about 3 feet thick Kept in the heat during winter and kept it cool in summer

Community Farm families often joined together to get things done. Built houses, barns and schools – together Social Events – barn dances, church services, holiday picnics, quilting bees and parties

Farming on the Plains Sod was good for house not for farming Long tough roots hard to break apart Little rain New technologies Steel plow – easier to break apart the land Grain / seed drills – plant several rows of seed at once Threshing machines – made removing grains of wheat faster and easier Barbed wire – marked off the land, kept cattle from roaming Mechanical binders – tied stalks into bundles for collection Joseph Glidden Grain drills Threshing machine Steel plow Barbed wire

New ways to farm Dry farming – deep ditches between rows allowing water to reach roots of plants Raised crops like winter wheat – grows in the spring when ground has moisture and harvested before hot summer Bonanza farms - wheat farms that had big profits

Great American Desert Pick one word that stands out to you Read the quote below. “It is almost wholly unfit for cultivation, and of course uninhabitable by a people depending upon agriculture for their subsistence...[T]he scarcity of wood and water, almost uniformly prevalent, will prove an insuperable obstacle in the way of settling the country.” - Quoted in An Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, Performed in the years 1819, 1820

Great American Desert How was land once thought to be worthless transformed into America’s wheat belt? Stop – Think - Discuss

Farmers Fall on Hard Times Severe drought, wind erosion and overuse of the land – destroyed crops and turned soil to dust Competition from other wheat producing countries – caused prices to drop Farmers mortgaged land – 1/3 became tenant farmers

Closing the Frontier Oklahoma Land Rush Farmers could claim free land 100,000 land seekers lined up “Sooners” – cheated and staked out land No longer a true frontier left Make a rush & get what you can” – William Willard Howard

Summary  Settlers made a fresh start and adapted to the tough environment  Water from deep wells allowed planting of trees and gardens  Railroads brought lumber (replacing sod houses), coal for fuel, and manufactured goods  Homesteaders raised cattle, chickens and a few crops  Farmers rarely became wealthy but could be self-sufficient

Wrap Up As a class make a list of +’s and –’s of going West PositivesNegatives Drought Blizzards Extreme heat and cold Living in a sod house Constant hard work Not going to become wealthy Becoming a landowner Freedom to choose how to live Fresh start Creating new communities Surrounded by nature Self sufficient

Quick Write Your parents are thinking about moving out west to the Great Plains. Write a letter to them convincing them to go or to stay. -Include 3 reasons on why it is a good idea. Circle your reason. -Include 1 supporting detail for each reason, underline your supporting detail.