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of federal agencies, state planning boards, and local groups, to develop 

 a program that would lead to more than temporary relief in the northern 

 Great Plains. In October, 1938, a preliminary report of the findings of 

 the committee was released. This revealed that the prevailing conditions 

 had not come into being overnight: 



Seven years of drought have disrupted the economy of the Northern Great 

 Plains. The prevailing system of land utilization, hazardous at best, has failed. 

 Tax delinquency, heavy real estate and chattel mortgages, and dependence on 

 public relief are widespread. In North Dakota, for example, more than 70 per 

 cent of all farms are listed as tax-delinquent; more than 75 per cent of the 

 farms in representative counties are mortgaged; and approximately 35 per cent 

 of all people are on relief. 



Many factors contributed through the years to economic and social instability 

 in the Plains, and helped to weaken resistance to the impact of recent droughts. 

 The provisions of the Homestead Act, under which the region was settled, did 

 not fit the semiarid environment a quarter section of land was too small a 

 unit for successful grazing or dry-land farming. Later legislation proved of 

 little benefit. Most land holdings are too small. Settlement was without guid- 

 ance. Homesteaders from humid lands in the middle and eastern interior 

 encountered conditions in the Plains of which they had no knowledge. Farm- 

 ing practices that had served them well in their old homes were unsuitable, 

 and the development of effective techniques proved a slow and difficult process 

 which is still unfinished. From the outset of settlement, periods of adequate rain- 

 fall and of withering drought alternated. 



In step with them, waves of immigration and of emigration succeeded one 

 another. Within the Region, too, population shifted from one district to an- 

 other. These restless movements and counter-movements reflected faulty and 

 insecure adjustments of population to the land. Under the occasional stimulus of 

 generous rains and high prices, wheat farming was carried far beyond its 

 legitimate bounds into numerous areas physically unfit for it. The Region re- 

 mains today a land of great risks, an unconquered frontier. 



The history of settlement and land use in the Northern Plains indicates clearly 

 that another period of normal or supernormal rainfall, however desirable, 

 would not alone insure stability. The plague of dry years would presently re- 

 turn; crop failures would follow bountiful harvests; despair would again replace 

 optimism. The future of the Region cannot be left safely to the unpredictable 

 hazards of rainfall and the inadequate resources of individual farmers. 



Generous public assistance has prevented extreme human suffering in the 

 Northern Plains during the recent years of drought and depression. Food, 

 clothing, and fuel have been furnished to all in need. Relief employment has 



