when did the drought began in the great plains
1934
title: Great Plains text: the Great Plains into an area that receive or more of rainfall per year and an area that receives less than . In this context, the High Plains, as well as Southern Alberta, south-western Saskatchewan and Eastern Montana are mainly semi arid steppe land and are generally characterised by rangeland or marginal farmland. The region (especially the High Plains) is periodically subjected to extended periods of drought; high winds in the region may then generate devastating dust storms. The eastern Great Plains near the eastern boundary falls in the humid subtropical climate zone in the southern areas, and the northern title: Great Plains text: began in Texas and gradually moved northward. Between 1866 and 1895, cowboys herded 10 million cattle north to rail heads such as Dodge City, Kansas and Ogallala, Nebraska; from there, cattle were shipped eastward. Many foreign investors, especially British, financed the great ranches of the era. Overstocking of the range and the terrible winter of 1886 resulted in a disaster, with many cattle starved and frozen to death. Theodore Roosevelt, a rancher in the Dakotas, lost his entire investment; he returned east to reenter politics. From then on, ranchers generally raised feed to ensure they could keep their cattle alive title: Droughts in the United States text: 1736, and from 1771 to 1773. There were at least three major droughts in 19th-century North America: one from the mid-1850s to the mid-1860s, one in the 1870s, and one in the 1890s. There was also a drought around 1820; the periods from 1816 to 1844 and from 1849 to 1880 were rather dry, and the 19th century overall was a dry century for the Great Plains. While there was little rain-gauge data from the mid-19th century in the middle of the US, there were plenty of trees, and tree-ring data showed evidence of a major drought from around 1856 title: Great Plains text: the late 1920s and early 1930s. The effect of an extended drought, inappropriate cultivation, and financial crises of the Great Depression, forced many farmers off the land throughout the Great Plains. From the 1950s on, many areas of the Great Plains have become productive crop-growing areas because of extensive irrigation on large landholdings. The United States is a major exporter of agricultural products. The southern portion of the Great Plains lies over the Ogallala Aquifer, a huge underground layer of water-bearing strata dating from the last ice age. Center pivot irrigation is used extensively in drier sections of the Great title: Depopulation of the Great Plains text: important crop. The western part is more arid and is primarily used for grazing cattle and irrigated agriculture. Large-scale settlement of the Great Plains by farmers and ranchers began with the end of the Civil War in 1865. By the late 1870s the Plains Indians had been defeated militarily and were largely confined to reservations. Drawn by the free land made available by the Homestead Act, pioneer families quickly settled the region such that nearly all of the arable land was privately owned or on Indian reservations by 1900. The initial rush to settle the Great Plains by hundreds of