for planting and harvesting crops. The narrator exclaims, "wheat will win the war!" multiple times while scenes of wheat and grain production appear alongside scenes of war. While scenes of settlers using mechanized farm equipment to harvest the crops continue, the narrator explains how millions of acres were converted over to farmland followed by more images of newspaper articles announcing that large acreage was available to purchase to establish more farmlands. Following the scenes showing extensive plowing and harvesting, the film cuts to images of dried land, animal bones, and abandoned farm equipment. The narrator again states that the rain did not come and the sun-baked millions of acres of plowed land, with footage of arid plains. As a result of this desertification, massive dust storms swept across the plains, causing people to take shelter, with homes buried under the dust. The narrator states that "once again they headed West," referring to the settlers losing hope and migrating in search of better opportunities. Within the final sequence, the narrator exclaims "Four hundred million acres the Great Plains seemed inexhaustible yet in 50 years we turned a part of it into a Dust Bowl" and continues to list the factors that led to the Dust Bowl, such as too many cattle and sheep, plowed lands that should have been left untouched, removal of native grasses to hold soil, and farm machines that made it easy for a single person to plow many acres. The narrator continues to explain that the federal government has been working to salvage whatever land is left and restore it through New Deal initiatives including the Soil Conversation Service, Forest Service, and the Civilian Conservation Corps, while the Resettlement Administration worked to resettle the stranded farmers. The viewer is left with one last message from the narrator who warns that conservation is necessary in order to save the rest of the plains and that "another decade of reckless use, and the grasslands will truly be the great American desert." Production Early production and filming The early production period, which consisted of Pare Lorentz conducting research and developing a rough shooting script lasted from June to September 1935. To make the film as inexpensive as possible, Lorentz did not use any professional actors and shot all footage on location. Because sound technology was still new, bringing the equipment into the field to capture human voices and sounds would