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"The rain follows the plow"
Jun. 26th, 2014 11:32Hope over reality in the mid to late 1800s.
The concept that if you plowed and developed the land, rain would follow, was actually enshrined in mainstream and intellectual thought between 1865 and 1875. Just before the Dustbowl came on. Go figure.
My favorite part, after the drought came and people stopped believing plowing alone would bring rain: "Yet in the 1890s, agricultural pseudoscience simply took on another form. The idea came around that explosives could be used to generate the vibrations required for rainfall. Folks seemed to realize that while not nearly as nutritious, dynamite sure was a much more entertaining way to produce rain than breaking your back growing a bunch of crops."
Or, y'know, maybe desperate people went a little nuts.
The concept that if you plowed and developed the land, rain would follow, was actually enshrined in mainstream and intellectual thought between 1865 and 1875. Just before the Dustbowl came on. Go figure.
My favorite part, after the drought came and people stopped believing plowing alone would bring rain: "Yet in the 1890s, agricultural pseudoscience simply took on another form. The idea came around that explosives could be used to generate the vibrations required for rainfall. Folks seemed to realize that while not nearly as nutritious, dynamite sure was a much more entertaining way to produce rain than breaking your back growing a bunch of crops."
Or, y'know, maybe desperate people went a little nuts.
