NEW DEAL: FIRST PHASES 493 



put into operation. One professor pointed out that planning needed much 

 educational effort behind it if it was going to work to the point of 

 educating the planners themselves on the matter of planning. But once 

 such a plan had been put into operation, there would be abundant informa- 

 tion available. More nearly accurate information would be available on 

 the kind of products needed, the amounts and grades needed of each, and 

 the areas in which these products could be produced to best advantage. 

 Such a plan would go a long way toward working oft the ill effects of a 

 national land policy that had been concerned only with the transferring 

 of land from public to private ownership as rapidly as possible, with no 

 thought being given to distributing land in units of sufficient size to 

 establish an economic enterprise and no attention being devoted to the 

 use which the settlers would make of this land. 41 



Perhaps nothing better demonstrated the barriers that faced the A.A.A. 

 than did the severe drought of 1934, which blanketed nearly three-fourths 

 of the country and was described as being of unprecedented proportions 

 in the history of the nation. 42 



Vegetation refuses to grow. Streams have stopped running. Springs, never 

 before failing in the memory of early settlers, are dry. Trees, with leaves 

 blighted, shriveling and falling with every gust of furnace hot air, produce 

 little or no shade. 



Cattle, starved for proper nourishment, refuse to put on flesh. Clouds will not 

 form in the skies, or, if they form, refuse to disgorge any moisture. Soil, turned 

 to dust, drifts over once fertile grazing lands, unrestrained by grass roots that 

 are brittle and crumbling. 



Only the sun refuses to strike and he works overtime, producing almost un- 

 believable heat. Some idea of it can be gained from Wednesday's announce- 

 ment of the Topeka (Kans.) weather observer, who said that only twice in 27 

 days has the temperature failed to reach 98 degrees, only four times has it 

 fallen below 70 degrees at night. 



And if you consider the last week alone the average daily maximum tem- 

 perature has been 107 degrees. Temperature maximums in scattered communi- 

 ties have been 114 degrees often, sometimes as high as 117 degrees. 



The produce truck has been replaced on the highways by the waterwagon. 



41. Christian Science Monitor, August 9-12, 1934. 



42. U. S. Dept. Agri., Agricultural Adjustment Administration, Agricultural 

 Adjustment in 1934, A Report of Administration of the Agricultural Adjustment 

 Act, February 15, 1934, to December 31, 1934 (Washington, 1935), pp. 17-19. 



