 the mountain reaches of montanades and sun and the mountain plateaus for summer it was a cattleman's parody of the grasslands and poured cattle into the plain markets to the edge of the plains lands indicate spraying up overnight and the cattle rolled into the west new populations new needs crowded the last frontier once again the plowmen followed the herd of the acres of land may open to the sun mayors of swirling dust night and day homes credit food and even hope were gone a thousand people left the great plain highways for the pacific coast and bewildered they joined the great army of the high nothing to eat nothing to do their homes on four wheels their work a desperate gamble for a day's labor in the fields along the highway price of a sack of beans or a tank of gas is a chance to start over and a chance for their children to eat to have medical care to have homes again a thousand a month the sun and winds wrote the most tragic chapter in American agriculture turned a part of it into a dust bowl we put too many cattle and sheep in it we granted homesteads of rangeland that never should have been plowed we tore up grass for war needs we invented new machinery making it possible for one man cheaply to plow thousands of acres an unprecedented drought completed the havoc there was no grass left to hold the light soil against the high winds the 50-year record 40 million acres of land ruined perhaps forever 200 million acres land can be saved and the federal government has worked strenuously during the past few years to restore these lands the soil conservation service the forest service the ccc and the resettlement administration are cooperating with the Department of Agriculture in working 65 land improvement projects in the plain the resettlement administration will take title to 5,800,000 acres of this land and put it to its proper agricultural use on a second front the federal government is working to rehabilitate the stricken farmers of the drought area various emergency agencies have distributed millions of dollars in direct relief and thousands of farmers from dire poverty the resettlement administration has loaned millions to farmers whose lands were not damaged beyond repair but who needed seed farm equipment and credit in order to carry on most important the resettlement administration is taking over 4,500 farms in the drought area and it will move families from this land that cannot be farmed into natural agricultural districts bottle farmstead such as this one being constructed in Nebraska are being built to house these resettled farmers and they not only will be paid for their old farms but they will be given a chance to buy their new homes on long-term credit modern equipment irrigation good land electricity sanitation schools the resettlement administration is bringing these benefits to thousands who will have stranded and without hope instill blow when the sun still bakes the land we must practice control and conservation we are to save the rest of the grass the rains will come again the plow will dig again another decade of reckless use the grasslands will truly be the great American desert