The Windweed Report

How brown are the prairies of Kansas,  How dust strewn her roadways today.  The sun for the present has left us. The air -- it is murky and grey.  But if we should live till next springtime,  How green her prairies will be,  All starred with beautiful flowers Like the waves of a restless sea.  And far in the distance our sorrows,  Will seem to have passed away,  Like the brown of the lovely prairies,  Like the air that is murky and grey.   -Mrs. Sarah E. Stotler  "Duster" rolling over a town in the plains. Photo courtesy of USA Today.  This type of folklore is a poem, specifically an agriculture poem about the Dust Bowl in the 1930's. According to Timothy Egan, author of The Worst Hard Time, " Cattle went blind and suffocated. When farmers cut them open, they found stomachs stuffed with fine sand... the instinctive act of hugging a loved one or shaking someone's hand could knock...

The topic of erosion control may not seem like it has a lot to do with agriculture from the outside, but if you think back to the Dust Bowl, you’ll realize that erosion control and responsibly using land has everything to do with agriculture. Now, how does manpower fit into that equation? Back in the 1930’s, the Great Depression hit alongside one of the largest man-made natural catastrophes in America’s history; the Dust Bowl. Lessons that farmers, scientists, and everyday people learned from this chapter of our history textbooks is this: before nature gives us the fruits of our labor, we must ensure we give her something back. A little overview of the Dust Bowl; how did it happen? When the people of America who homesteaded (per the governments’ request) settled in the plains, they farmed little gardens to keep the family afloat. Decades later, their ancestors would “plow-up” their land to farm, fueled by rising wheat prices, a war in Europe and a couple good years of rain....

Rhetorical Analysis of Conservation Rhetoric USDA Forest Service and "Smokey Bear" The Ad Council, federal Office of War Information (OWI), and the US Dept. of Agriculture Forest Service went in together on the Cooperative Forest Fire Campaign, which was first established in 1942. The campaign was focused on Forest Fire Prevention. In 1949, they ran the above advertisement, which was intended to be put on a bus or subway car. The every day American was the target of this campaign. It's purpose was to encourage Americans to be more careful in the forests and to not start forest fires. The Ad Council, federal Office of War Information (OWI), and the US Dept. of Agriculture Forest Service paired up to push this campaign using the rhetoric strategy of pathos. Although the advertisement was shown to be concerned with the welfare of wildlife, the Ad Council, OWI and USDA Forest Service really pushed the campaign to decrease forest fires that were eating up the...