1.
County (United States)
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In the United States, an administrative or political sub-division of a state is a county, which is a region having specific boundaries and usually some level of governmental authority. The term county is used in 48 U. S. states, while Louisiana and Alaska have functionally equivalent subdivisions called parishes, most counties have subdivisions which may include municipalities and unincorporated areas. Others have no divisions, or may serve as a singular consolidated city-county. Some municipalities are in multiple counties, New York City is uniquely partitioned into multiple counties/boroughs, the U. S. federal government uses the term county equivalent to describe non-county administrative or statistical areas that are comparable to counties. Alaskas Unorganized Borough is divided into 11 census areas that are equivalent to counties. As of 2013, the United States has 3,007 counties and 137 county equivalents for a total of 3,144 counties, the number of counties per state ranges from the 3 counties of Delaware to the 254 counties of Texas. Counties have significant governmental functions in all states except Rhode Island and Connecticut, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has removed most government functions from eight of its 14 counties. The county with the largest population, Los Angeles County, counties were among the earliest units of local government established in the Thirteen Colonies that would become the United States. Virginia created the first counties in order to ease the workload in Jamestown. Americas oldest intact county court records can be found at Eastville, Virginia, in Northampton County, maryland established its first county, St. Marys, in 1637, and Massachusetts followed in 1643. When independence came, the framers of the Constitution did not provide for local governments, rather, they left the matter to the states. Subsequently, early state constitutions generally conceptualized county government as an arm of the state, in some states, these powers are partly or mostly devolved to the counties smaller divisions usually called townships, though in New York, New England and Wisconsin they are called towns. The county may or may not be able to override its townships on certain matters, the newest county in the United States is the city and county of Broomfield, Colorado, established in 2001 as a consolidated city-county. The newest county-equivalents are the Alaskan boroughs of Skagway established in 2007, Wrangell established in 2008, there are 40 consolidated city-counties in the U. S. Similarly, some of Alaskas boroughs have merged with their principal cities creating unified city-boroughs. Some such consolidations and mergers have created cities that rank among the geographically largest cities in the world, see also, #County names, regarding Louisiana. Independent cities, These are cities that legally belong to no county, Washington, D. C. outside the jurisdiction of any state, has a special status. The city of Washington comprises the entirety of the District of Columbia, when founded in 1801, the District consisted of two counties and three cities. In 1846, Alexandria County – including the then–City of Alexandria – was given back to Virginia, in 1871, the three remaining entities – the City of Washington, Georgetown City, and Washington County – were merged into a consolidated government by an act of Congress
2.
Natural Resources Conservation Service
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Its name was changed in 1994 during the presidency of Bill Clinton to reflect its broader mission. It is a small agency, currently comprising about 11,000 employees. Its mission is to improve, protect, and conserve resources on private lands through a cooperative partnership with state. While its primary focus has been agricultural lands, it has many technical contributions to soil surveying, classification. NRCS is the agency in this project. The agency was founded largely through the efforts of Hugh Hammond Bennett, bennetts motivation was based on his knowledge of the detrimental effects of soil erosion and the impacts on U. S lands that led to the Dust Bowl in the 1930s. On September 13,1933, the Soil Erosion Service was formed in the Department of the Interior, the Soil Conservation Service was in charge of 500 Civilian Conservation Corps camps between 1933 and 1942. The primary purpose of these camps was erosion control, Hugh Bennett continued as chief, a position he held until his retirement in 1952. On October 20,1994, the agency was renamed to the Natural Resources Conservation Service as part of the Federal Crop Insurance Reform, NRCS offers technical and financial assistance to farmers and ranchers. The financial assistance is authorized by the Farm Bill, a law that is renewed every five years, the 2014 Farm Bill consolidated 23 programs into 15. NRCS offers these services to land owners, conservation districts, tribes. NRCS also collects and shares information on the soil, water, air. The Conservation Title of the Farm Bill provides the funding to agricultural producers, all of these programs are voluntary. Conservation Stewardship Program CSP is targeted to ag producers who maintain a level of environmental stewardship. Regional Conservation Partnership Program RCPP consolidated four programs from the prior 2008 Farm Bill and it aims at more regional or watershed scale projects, rather than individual farms and ranches. ACEP includes technical and financial help to maintain or improve land for agriculture or environmental benefits, landowners volunteer to restore and protect forests in 30 or 10 year contracts. This program hands assisting funds to participants, the project began in 2010 and initially focused on the Mississippi Basin area. The main goal of the project is to implement better methods of managing water drainage from agricultural uses, in October 2011, The National Managing Water, Harvesting Results Summit was held to promote the drainage techniques used in hopes of people adopting them nationwide
3.
Cimarron County, Oklahoma
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Cimarron County is the westernmost county in the U. S. state of Oklahoma. As of the 2010 census, the population was 2,475 and its county seat is Boise City. Located in the Oklahoma Panhandle, Cimarron County contains the community in the state that observes the Mountain Time Zone. Black Rock Mesa, the highest point in the state, is in the northwest corner of the county, throughout most of its history it has had both the smallest population and the lowest population density of any county in Oklahoma. Cimarron County was created at statehood in 1907, before the Oklahoma Organic Act was passed in 1890, the area had belonged to what was known as No Mans Land, also referred to as the Public Land Strip. This was a lawless area, with no organized government. In 1890, the became known as Beaver County, Oklahoma Territory. Informally, it was known as the Oklahoma Panhandle, there were only two communities in the strip. One, Carrizo, had 83 residents in 1890, while the other, otherwise, the land was used primarily by sheepherders from New Mexico. Seven communities vied to become county seat after statehood, Boise City, Cimarron, Doby, Hurley, a county election in 1908 selected Boise City. Railroads came late to this part of Oklahoma, the Elkhart and Santa Fe Railway built a line from Elkhart, Kansas through Cimarron County in 1925. It completed the link into New Mexico in 1932, the same company built a line from Colorado to Boise City in 1931 and extended it into Texas in 1937. This line still operates and in 2000 was part of the BNSF system. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has an area of 1,841 square miles. It is the fourth-largest county in Oklahoma by area and it also has Oklahomas highest point at 4,973 feet on the Black Mesa. The northern part of the county is drained by the Cimarron River, the man-made Lake Carl Etling lies inside Black Mesa park. A location 300 yards east of Rt. 287/385 and 1.75 miles south of the Cimarron River is the place in the US less than 27 miles from five different states,26.99 miles from Kansas, New Mexico
4.
Arthur Rothstein
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Arthur Rothstein was an American photographer. Rothstein is recognized as one of America’s premier photojournalists, during a career that spanned five decades, he provoked, entertained and informed the American people. His photographs ranged from a baseball game to the drama of war. Rothstein was born in Manhattan, New York City, and he grew up in the Bronx and he was a graduate of Columbia University, where he was a founder of the University Camera Club and photography editor of the Columbian. Following his graduation from Columbia during the Great Depression, Rothstein was invited to Washington DC by one of his professors at Columbia, Rothstein had been Strykers student at Columbia University in the early 1930s. In 1935, as a senior, Rothstein prepared a set of copy photographs for a picture source book on American agriculture that Stryker and another professor. The book was never published, but before the year was out, Tugwell, Stryker hired Rothstein to set up the darkroom for Strykers Photo Unit of the Historical Section of the Resettlement Administration. Arthur Rothstein became the first photographer sent out by Roy Stryker, during the next five years he shot some of the most significant photographs ever taken of rural and small-town America. The Resettlement Administration became the Farm Security Administration in 1937, later, when the country geared up for World War II, the FSA became part of the Office of War Information. The photographs made during Rothsteins five-year stint with the Photo Unit form a catalog of the agencys initiatives, enacted in July, the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act gave the agency its new lease on life as the Farm Security Administration. Stryker planned to visit Alabama and asked Rothstein to wait for him, the residents of Gees Bend symbolized two different things to the Resettlement Administration. On the other hand, the agenda for rehabilitation implied a view of the residents as the victims of slavery. Unlike the subjects of many Resettlement Administration and Farm Security Administration photographs, the photographs do not show the back-breaking work of cultivation and harvest, but only offer a glimpse of spring plowing. At home, the residents do not merely inhabit substandard housing but are engaged in a variety of domestic activities, the dwellings at Gees Bend must have been as uncomfortable as the frame shacks thrown up for farm workers everywhere, but Rothsteins photographs emphasize the log cabins picturesque qualities. This affirming image of life in Gees Bend is reinforced by Rothsteins deliberate, there does not seem to have been a Life magazine story about Gees Bend, but a long article ran in the New York Times Magazine of August 22,1937. It is illustrated by eleven of Rothsteins pictures, with a text that draws heavily upon a Resettlement Administration report dated in May, the story extols the agencys regional director as intelligent and sympathetic and describes the Gees Bend project in glowing terms. Reporter John Temple Graves II perceived the project as retaining agrarian —, in 1940 Mr. Rothstein became a staff photographer for Look magazine but left shortly thereafter to join the OWI and then the US Army as a photographer in the Signal Corps. In 1947 Mr. Rothstein rejoined Look as Director of Photography and he remained at Look until 1971 when the magazine ceased publication
5.
Dust storm
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A dust storm is a meteorological phenomenon common in arid and semi-arid regions. Dust storms arise when a gust front or other strong wind blows loose sand, fine particles are transported by saltation and suspension, a process that moves soil from one place and deposits it in another. Drylands around North Africa and the Arabian peninsula are the main sources of airborne dust. Also with some contributions from Iran, Pakistan and India into the Arabian Sea, the term dust storm is more likely to be used when finer particles are blown long distances, especially when the dust storm affects urban areas. As the force of wind passing over loosely held particles increases, particles of sand first start to vibrate, as they repeatedly strike the ground, they loosen and break off smaller particles of dust which then begin to travel in suspension. At wind speeds above that which causes the smallest to suspend, there will be a population of dust grains moving by a range of mechanisms, suspension, saltation, a study from 2008 finds that the initial saltation of sand particles induces a static electric field by friction. Saltating sand acquires a negative charge relative to the ground which in turn loosens more sand particles which then begin saltating and this process has been found to double the number of particles predicted by previous theories. Particles become loosely held mainly due to drought or arid conditions, gust fronts may be produced by the outflow of rain-cooled air from an intense thunderstorm. S. Following the passage of a dry cold front, convective instability resulting from cooler air riding over heated ground can maintain the dust storm initiated at the front. In desert areas, dust and sand storms are most commonly caused by either thunderstorm outflows, the vertical extent of the dust or sand that is raised is largely determined by the stability of the atmosphere above the ground as well as by the weight of the particulates. In some cases, dust and sand may be confined to a shallow layer by a low-lying temperature inversion. In other instances, dust may be lifted as high as 20,000 feet high, drought and wind contribute to the emergence of dust storms, as do poor farming and grazing practices by exposing the dust and sand to the wind. One poor farming practice which contributes to dust storms is dryland farming, particularly poor dryland farming techniques are intensive tillage or not having established crops or cover crops when storms strike at particularly vulnerable times prior to revegetation. In a semi-arid climate, these practices increase susceptibility to dust storms, however, soil conservation practices may be implemented to control wind erosion. A sandstorm can transport and carry large volumes of sand unexpectedly, Dust storms can carry large amounts of dust, with the leading edge being composed of a wall of thick dust as much as 1.6 km high. Dust and sand storms which come off the Sahara Desert are locally known as a simoom or simoon, the haboob is a sandstorm prevalent in the region of Sudan around Khartoum, with occurrences being most common in the summer. The Sahara desert is a key source of dust storms, particularly the Bodélé Depression and an area covering the confluence of Mauritania, Mali, and Algeria. Saharan dust storms have increased approximately 10-fold during the half-century since the 1950s, causing loss in Niger, Chad, northern Nigeria
6.
Agriculture
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Agriculture is the cultivation and breeding of animals, plants and fungi for food, fiber, biofuel, medicinal plants and other products used to sustain and enhance human life. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of human civilization. The study of agriculture is known as agricultural science, the history of agriculture dates back thousands of years, and its development has been driven and defined by greatly different climates, cultures, and technologies. Industrial agriculture based on large-scale monoculture farming has become the dominant agricultural methodology, genetically modified organisms are an increasing component of agriculture, although they are banned in several countries. Agricultural food production and water management are increasingly becoming global issues that are fostering debate on a number of fronts, the major agricultural products can be broadly grouped into foods, fibers, fuels, and raw materials. Specific foods include cereals, vegetables, fruits, oils, meats, fibers include cotton, wool, hemp, silk and flax. Raw materials include lumber and bamboo, other useful materials are also produced by plants, such as resins, dyes, drugs, perfumes, biofuels and ornamental products such as cut flowers and nursery plants. The word agriculture is a late Middle English adaptation of Latin agricultūra, from ager, field, Agriculture usually refers to human activities, although it is also observed in certain species of ant, termite and ambrosia beetle. To practice agriculture means to use resources to produce commodities which maintain life, including food, fiber, forest products, horticultural crops. This definition includes arable farming or agronomy, and horticulture, all terms for the growing of plants, even then, it is acknowledged that there is a large amount of knowledge transfer and overlap between silviculture and agriculture. In traditional farming, the two are often combined even on small landholdings, leading to the term agroforestry, Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe, and included a diverse range of taxa. At least 11 separate regions of the Old and New World were involved as independent centers of origin, wild grains were collected and eaten from at least 105,000 years ago. Pigs were domesticated in Mesopotamia around 15,000 years ago, rice was domesticated in China between 13,500 and 8,200 years ago, followed by mung, soy and azuki beans. Sheep were domesticated in Mesopotamia between 13,000 and 11,000 years ago. From around 11,500 years ago, the eight Neolithic founder crops, emmer and einkorn wheat, hulled barley, peas, lentils, bitter vetch, chick peas and flax were cultivated in the Levant. Cattle were domesticated from the aurochs in the areas of modern Turkey. In the Andes of South America, the potato was domesticated between 10,000 and 7,000 years ago, along with beans, coca, llamas, alpacas, sugarcane and some root vegetables were domesticated in New Guinea around 9,000 years ago. Sorghum was domesticated in the Sahel region of Africa by 7,000 years ago, cotton was domesticated in Peru by 5,600 years ago, and was independently domesticated in Eurasia at an unknown time
7.
Prairie
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Temperate grassland regions include the Pampas of Argentina, southern Brazil and Uruguay as well as the steppes of Eurasia. Lands typically referred to as prairie tend to be in North America, the Central Valley of California is also a prairie. The Canadian Prairies occupy vast areas of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Prairie is the French word for meadow, but the ultimate root is the Latin pratum. The formation of the North American Prairies started with the upwelling of the Rocky Mountains near Alberta, the mountains created a rain shadow that resulted in lower precipitation rates downwind, creating an environment in which most tree species will not tolerate. The parent material of most prairie soil was distributed during the last glacial advance that began about 110,000 years ago, the glaciers expanding southward scraped the landscape, picking up geologic material and leveling the terrain. As the glaciers retreated about 10,000 years ago, it deposited this material in the form of till, wind based loess deposits also form an important parent material for prairie soils. Tallgrass Prairie evolved over tens of thousands of years with the disturbances of grazing, native ungulates such as bison, elk, and white-tailed deer, roamed the expansive, diverse, plentiful grassland before European colonization of the Americas. For 10, 000-20,000 years native people used fire annually as a tool to assist in hunting, transportation, evidence of ignition sources of fire in the tallgrass prairie are overwhelmingly human as opposed to lightning. Humans, and grazing animals, were participants in the process of prairie formation. Fire has the effect on prairies of removing trees, clearing dead plant matter, fire kills the vascular tissue of trees, but not prairie, as up to 75% of the total plant biomass is below the soil surface and will re-grow from its deep roots. Without disturbance, trees will encroach on a grassland, cast shade, Prairie and widely spaced oak trees evolved to coexist in the oak savanna ecosystem. In spite of long recurrent droughts and occasional torrential rains, the grasslands of the Great Plains were not subject to soil erosion. The root systems of native prairie grasses firmly held the soil in place to prevent run-off of soil, when the plant died, the fungi, bacteria returned its nutrients to the soil. These deep roots also helped native prairie plants reach water in even the driest conditions, the native grasses suffered much less damage from dry conditions than the farm crops currently grown. Prairie in North America is usually split into three groups, wet, mesic, and dry and they are generally characterized by tallgrass prairie, mixed, or shortgrass prairie, depending on the quality of soil and rainfall. In wet prairies the soil is very moist, including during most of the growing season. The resulting stagnant water is conducive to the formation of bogs, wet prairies have excellent farming soil. The average precipitation amount is 10-30 inches a year, mesic prairie /ˈmiːzɪk/ has good drainage, but good soil during the growing season
8.
Drought
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A drought is a period of below-average precipitation in a given region, resulting in prolonged shortages in its water supply, whether atmospheric, surface water or ground water. A drought can last for months or years, or may be declared after as few as 15 days and it can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region and harm to the local economy. Annual dry seasons in the tropics significantly increase the chances of a drought developing, periods of heat can significantly worsen drought conditions by hastening evaporation of water vapour. Many plant species, such as those in the family Cactaceae, have drought tolerance adaptations like reduced leaf area, some others survive dry periods as buried seeds. Semi-permanent drought produces arid biomes such as deserts and grasslands, prolonged droughts have caused mass migrations and humanitarian crises. Most arid ecosystems have inherently low productivity, the most prolonged drought ever in the world in recorded history occurred in the Atacama Desert in Chile. Mechanisms of producing precipitation include convective, stratiform, and orographic rainfall, precipitation can be divided into three categories, based on whether it falls as liquid water, liquid water that freezes on contact with the surface, or ice. Drought are mainly course by in low rain areas, if these factors do not support precipitation volumes sufficient to reach the surface over a sufficient time, the result is a drought. Once a region is within drought, feedback mechanisms such as local arid air, hot conditions which can promote warm core ridging, within the tropics, distinct, wet and dry seasons emerge due to the movement of the Intertropical Convergence Zone or Monsoon trough. The dry season greatly increases drought occurrence, and is characterized by its low humidity, with watering holes, because of the lack of these watering holes, many grazing animals are forced to migrate due to the lack of water and feed to more fertile spots. Examples of such animals are zebras, elephants, and wildebeest, because of the lack of water in the plants, bushfires are common. Since water vapor becomes more energetic with increasing temperature, more water vapor is required to increase relative humidity values to 100% at higher temperatures, periods of warmth quicken the pace of fruit and vegetable production, increase evaporation and transpiration from plants, and worsen drought conditions. Drier and hotter weather occurs in parts of the Amazon River Basin, Colombia, winters during the El Niño are warmer and drier than average conditions in the Northwest, northern Midwest, and northern Mideast United States, so those regions experience reduced snowfalls. Conditions are also drier than normal from December to February in south-central Africa, mainly in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Botswana. Direct effects of El Niño resulting in drier conditions occur in parts of Southeast Asia and Northern Australia, increasing bush fires, worsening haze, drier-than-normal conditions are also in general observed in Queensland, inland Victoria, inland New South Wales, and eastern Tasmania from June to August. As warm water spreads from the west Pacific and the Indian Ocean to the east Pacific, it causes extensive drought in the western Pacific. Singapore experienced the driest February in 2014 since records began in 1869, with only 6.3 mm of rain falling in the month, the years 1968 and 2005 had the next driest Februaries, when 8.4 mm of rain fell. Human activity can directly trigger exacerbating factors such as farming, excessive irrigation, deforestation
9.
Dryland farming
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Dryland farming and dry farming are agricultural techniques for non-irrigated cultivation of crops. Dryland farming is associated with drylands - dry areas characterized by a wet season followed by a warm dry season. Dryland farming was introduced to southern Russia and Ukraine by Ukrainian Mennonites under the influence of Johann Cornies, in Australia, it is widely practiced in all states but the Northern Territory. Dry farming may be practiced in areas that have significant annual rainfall during a wet season, Crops are cultivated during the subsequent dry season, using practices that make use of the stored moisture in the soil. California, Colorado and Oregon, in the United States, are three states where dry farming is practiced for a variety of crops, Dryland farmed crops may include winter wheat, corn, beans, Sunflowers or even watermelon. Successful dryland farming is possible with as little as 9 inches of precipitation a year, native American tribes in the arid Southwest survived for hundreds of years on dryland farming in areas with less than 10 inches of rain. The choice of crop is influenced by the timing of the predominant rainfall in relation to the seasons. For example, winter wheat is more suited to regions with higher winter rainfall areas with summer wet seasons may be more suited to summer growing crops such as sorghum. Dry farmed crops may include grapes, tomatoes, pumpkins, beans and these crops grow using the winter water stored in the soil, rather than depending on rainfall during the growing season. Dryland farming has evolved as a set of techniques and management practices used by farmers to adapt to the presence or lack of moisture in a given crop cycle. In marginal regions, a farmer should be able to survive occasional crop failures. Survival as a dryland farmer requires careful husbandry of the moisture available for the crop, Dryland farming involves the constant assessing of the amount of moisture present or lacking for any given crop cycle and planning accordingly. Dryland farmers know that to be successful they have to be aggressive during the good years in order to offset the dry years. The fact that a period must be included in the crop rotation means that fields cannot always be protected by a cover crop. Some of the theories of dryland farming developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries claimed to be scientific but were in reality pseudoscientific, Dry farming depends on making the best use of the bank of soil moisture that was created by winter rainfall. Some dry farming practices include, Wider than normal spacing, to provide a bank of moisture for each plant. Strict weed control, to ensure that weeds do not consume soil moisture needed by the cultivated plants, cultivation of soil to produce a dust mulch, thought to prevent the loss of water through capillary action. This practice is controversial, and is not universally advocated, selection of crops and cultivars suited for dry farming practices
10.
Aeolian processes
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Aeolian processes, also spelled eolian or æolian, pertain to wind activity in the study of geology and weather and specifically to the winds ability to shape the surface of the Earth. Winds may erode, transport, and deposit materials and are effective agents in regions with sparse vegetation, a lack of soil moisture, although water is a much more powerful eroding force than wind, aeolian processes are important in arid environments such as deserts. The term is derived from the name of the Greek god Aeolus, wind erodes the Earths surface by deflation and by abrasion. Regions which experience intense and sustained erosion are called deflation zones, most aeolian deflation zones are composed of desert pavement, a sheet-like surface of rock fragments that remains after wind and water have removed the fine particles. Almost half of Earths desert surfaces are stony deflation zones, the rock mantle in desert pavements protects the underlying material from deflation. A dark, shiny stain, called desert varnish or rock varnish, is found on the surfaces of some desert rocks that have been exposed at the surface for a long period of time. Manganese, iron oxides, hydroxides, and clay minerals form most varnishes, deflation basins, called blowouts, are hollows formed by the removal of particles by wind. Blowouts are generally small, but may be up to kilometers in diameter. In parts of Antarctica wind-blown snowflakes that are technically sediments have also caused abrasion of exposed rocks, grinding by particles carried in the wind creates grooves or small depressions. Ventifacts are rocks which have cut, and sometimes polished. Sculpted landforms, called yardangs, are up to tens of meters high, the famous Great Sphinx of Giza in Egypt may be a modified yardang. Particles are transported by winds through suspension, saltation and creeping along the ground, small particles may be held in the atmosphere in suspension. Upward currents of air support the weight of suspended particles and hold them indefinitely in the surrounding air, typical winds near Earths surface suspend particles less than 0.2 millimeters in diameter and scatter them aloft as dust or haze. Saltation is downwind movement of particles in a series of jumps or skips, saltation normally lifts sand-size particles no more than one centimeter above the ground and proceeds at one-half to one-third the speed of the wind. A saltating grain may hit other grains that jump up to continue the saltation, the grain may also hit larger grains that are too heavy to hop, but that slowly creep forward as they are pushed by saltating grains. Surface creep accounts for as much as 25 percent of grain movement in a desert, aeolian turbidity currents are better known as dust storms. Air over deserts is cooled significantly when rain passes through it and this cooler and denser air sinks toward the desert surface. When it reaches the ground, the air is deflected forward, crops, people, villages, and possibly even climates are affected by dust storms
11.
Topsoil
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Topsoil is the upper, outermost layer of soil, usually the top 2 inches to 8 inches. It has the highest concentration of matter and microorganisms and is where most of the Earths biological soil activity occurs. Four elements constitute the composition of soil and those elements are mineral particles, organic matter, water, and air. The volume of top soil consists of 50 to 80 percent of these particles form the skeletal structure of most soils. This composition allows the soil to sustain its own weight, and other internal matter such as water, organic matter, another important element, varies on quantity on different soils. This provokes positive and negative effects or reactions on the soil, the strength of soil structure decreases with the presence of organic matter, creating weak bearing capacities. Organic matter condenses and settles in different ways under certain conditions, such as roadbeds, the skeletal structure becomes affected once the soil is dewatered. It decomposes and suffers wind erosion, plants generally concentrate their roots in and obtain most of their vital nutrients from this layer. Actual depth of the layer can be measured as the depth from the surface to the first densely packed soil layer known as subsoil. In soil classification systems, topsoil is known as the O Horizon or A Horizon, therefore, commercially available topsoil in the United Kingdom should be classified to British Standard BS3882 with the current version dated 2015. The topsoil should be sampled in accordance with the British Standard and European Norm BS EN12579,2013 Soil improvers, different types of plants vary in their nutrient needs and preferred soil conditions, many are strongly adapted to particular conditions. However, some general guidelines for desired levels of Topsoil nutrients have been made, the two common types of Topsoil are Bulk and Bagged Topsoil. The following table illustrates major differences between the two, alternatively the British Standard relates to other working values, This is for a multipurpose grade and certain levels can alter with regard to soil pH. These uses are limited to specific scenarios and acceptance should be on a case by case basis for construction projects. Topsoil is the resource for plants to grow and crops to thrive. The Carbon provides energy and Nitrogen is a builder and plants require them in a range of ratios to enable suitable growth. An optimum figure for Topsoil in the UK is a ratio of less than 20,1 and this ensures that the soil has a suitable energy reserve as well as tissue building material to enable the plants to thrive. A sawdust typically has a base and this a high C, N ratio while an Alfalfa Hay has a low carbonaceous content
12.
Great Plains
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The region is known for supporting extensive cattle ranching and dry farming. The Canadian portion of the Plains is known as the Prairies, some geographers include some territory of northern Mexico in the Plains, but many stop at the Rio Grande. The term Great Plains is used in the United States to describe a sub-section of the even more vast Interior Plains physiographic division and it also has currency as a region of human geography, referring to the Plains Indians or the Plains States. There is no region referred to as the Great Plains in The Atlas of Canada, in terms of human geography, the term prairie is more commonly used in Canada, and the region is known as the Prairie Provinces or simply the Prairies. The region is about 500 mi east to west and 2,000 mi north to south, much of the region was home to American bison herds until they were hunted to near extinction during the mid/late 19th century. It has an area of approximately 500,000 sq mi, current thinking regarding the geographic boundaries of the Great Plains is shown by this map at the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln. The term Great Plains, for the region west of about the 96th or 98th meridian, nevin Fennemans 1916 study, Physiographic Subdivision of the United States, brought the term Great Plains into more widespread usage. Before that the region was almost invariably called the High Plains, today the term High Plains is used for a subregion of the Great Plains. The Great Plains are the westernmost portion of the vast North American Interior Plains, during the Cretaceous Period, the Great Plains were covered by a shallow inland sea called the Western Interior Seaway. However, during the Late Cretaceous to the Paleocene, the seaway had begun to recede, leaving thick marine deposits. During the Cenozoic era, specifically about 25 million years ago during the Miocene and Pliocene epochs, existing forest biomes declined and grasslands became much more widespread. The grasslands provided a new niche for mammals, including many ungulates and glires, traditionally, the spread of grasslands and the development of grazers have been strongly linked. The vast majority of animals became extinct in North America at the end of the Pleistocene. In general, the Great Plains have a variety of weather through the year, with very cold and harsh winters and very hot. Wind speeds are very high, especially in winter. Grasslands are among the least protected biomes, humans have converted much of the prairies for agricultural purposes or to create pastures. The Great Plains have dust storms mostly every year or so, the 100th meridian roughly corresponds with the line that divides the Great Plains into an area that receive 20 in or more of rainfall per year and an area that receives less than 20 in. The region is subjected to extended periods of drought, high winds in the region may then generate devastating dust storms
13.
Poaceae
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Poaceae or Gramineae is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants known as grasses. Poaceae includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and cultivated lawns, Grasses have stems that are hollow except at the nodes and narrow alternate leaves borne in two ranks. The lower part of each leaf encloses the stem, forming a leaf-sheath, with ca 780 genera and around 12,000 species, Poaceae are the fifth-largest plant family, following the Asteraceae, Orchidaceae, Fabaceae and Rubiaceae. Grasslands such as savannah and prairie grasses are dominant are estimated to constitute 40. 5% of the land area of the Earth, excluding Greenland. Grasses are also an important part of the vegetation in many habitats, including wetlands, forests. Though commonly called grasses, seagrasses, rushes, and sedges fall outside this family, the rushes and sedges are related to the Poaceae, being members of the order Poales, but the seagrasses are members of order Alismatales. The name Poaceae was given by John Hendley Barnhart in 1895, based on the tribe Poeae described in 1814 by Robert Brown, the term is derived from the Ancient Greek πόα. Grasses include some of the most versatile plant life-forms, a cladogram shows subfamilies and approximate species numbers in brackets, Before 2005, fossil findings indicated that grasses evolved around 55 million years ago. Recent findings of grass-like phytoliths in Cretaceous dinosaur coprolites have pushed this back to 66 million years ago. In 2011, revised dating of the origins of the rice tribe Oryzeae suggested a date as early as 107 to 129 Mya, a multituberculate mammal with grass-eating adaptations seems to suggest that grasses were already around at 120 mya. This separation occurred within the short time span of about 4 million years. Grass leaves are always alternate and distichous, and have parallel veins. Each leaf is differentiated into a lower sheath hugging the stem, the leaf blades of many grasses are hardened with silica phytoliths, which discourage grazing animals, some, such as sword grass, are sharp enough to cut human skin. A membranous appendage or fringe of hairs called the ligule lies at the junction between sheath and blade, preventing water or insects from penetrating into the sheath, flowers of Poaceae are characteristically arranged in spikelets, each having one or more florets. The spikelets are further grouped into panicles or spikes, the part of the spikelet that bears the florets is called the rachilla. A spikelet consists of two bracts at the base, called glumes, followed by one or more florets, a floret consists of the flower surrounded by two bracts, one external—the lemma—and one internal—the palea. The flowers are usually hermaphroditic—maize being an important exception—and anemophilous or wind-pollinated, the perianth is reduced to two scales, called lodicules, that expand and contract to spread the lemma and palea, these are generally interpreted to be modified sepals. This complex structure can be seen in the image on the right, the fruit of grasses is a caryopsis, in which the seed coat is fused to the fruit wall
14.
Combine harvester
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The combine harvester, or simply combine, is a machine that harvests grain crops. The name derives from its three separate operations comprising harvesting—reaping, threshing, and winnowing—into a single process. Among the crops harvested with a combine are wheat, oats, rye, barley, corn, sorghum, soybeans, flax, sunflowers, and canola. Combine harvesters are one of the most economically important labour saving inventions, Scottish inventor Patrick Bell invented the reaper in 1826. The combine was invented in the United States by Hiram Moore in 1834, early versions were pulled by horse, mule or ox teams. In 1835, Moore built a version and by 1839. By 1860, combine harvesters with a cutting, or swathe, australian Hugh Victor McKay produced a commercially successful combine harvester in 1885, the Sunshine Harvester. Combines, some of them large, were drawn by mule or horse teams. Later, steam power was used, and George Stockton Berry integrated the combine with an engine using straw to heat the boiler. At the turn of the century, horse drawn combines were starting to be used on the American plains. In 1911, the Holt Manufacturing Company of California produced a self-propelled harvester, in Australia in 1923, the patented Sunshine Auto Header was one of the first center-feeding self-propelled harvesters. In 1923 in Kansas, the Baldwin brothers and their Gleaner Manufacturing Company patented a self-propelled harvester that included several other improvements in grain handling. Both the Gleaner and the Sunshine used Fordson engines, early Gleaners used the entire Fordson chassis, in 1929 Alfredo Rotania of Argentina patented a self-propelled harvester. International Harvester started making horse-pulled combines in 1915, at the time horse powered binders and stand alone threshing machines were more common. In the 1920s Case Corporation and John Deere made combines and these were starting to be pulled with a second engine aboard the combine to power its workings. The world economic collapse in the 1930s stopped farm equipment purchases thus people largely retained the older method of harvesting, a few farms did invest and used Caterpillar tractors to move the outfits. Tractor-drawn combines became common after World War II as many began to use tractors. An example was the All-Crop Harvester series and these combines used a shaker to separate the grain from the chaff and straw-walkers to eject the straw while retaining the grain
15.
Dust
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Dust is fine particles of matter. It generally consists of particles in the atmosphere that come from sources such as soil, dust lifted by weather, volcanic eruptions. House dust mites are present indoors wherever humans live, positive tests for dust mite allergies are extremely common among people with asthma. Dust mites are microscopic arachnids whose primary food is dead skin cells. They and their feces and other allergens they produce are major constituents of house dust and they are generally found on the floor and other surfaces until disturbed. It could take somewhere between twenty minutes and two hours for dust mites to settle back down out of the air, Dust mites are a nesting species that prefers a dark, warm, and humid climate. They flourish in mattresses, bedding, upholstered furniture, and carpets and their feces include enzymes that are released upon contact with a moist surface, which can happen when a person inhales, and these enzymes can kill cells within the human body. House dust mites did not become a problem until humans began to use textiles, such as western style blankets and clothing. Atmospheric or wind-borne dust, also known as aeolian dust, comes from arid and dry regions where high velocity winds are able to remove mostly silt-sized material, Dust in the atmosphere is produced by saltation and sandblasting of sand-sized grains, and it is transported through the troposphere. This airborne dust is considered an aerosol and once in the atmosphere, saharan dust in particular can be transported and deposited as far as the Caribbean and the Amazon basin, and may affect air temperatures, cause ocean cooling, and alter rainfall amounts. Dust in the Middle East has been a historic phenomenon, recently, because of climate change and the escalating process of desertification, the problem has worsened dramatically. As a multi-factor phenomenon, there is not yet a consensus on the sources or potential solutions to the problem. In Iran, the dust is already affecting more than 5 million people directly, in the province of Khuzestan it has led to the severe reduction of air quality. The amount of pollutants in the air has surpassed more than 50 times the normal level several times in a year, recently, initiatives such as Project-Dust have been established to directly study the Middle Eastern dust. Dust kicked up by vehicles traveling on roads may make up 33% of air pollution, road dust consists of deposits of vehicle exhausts and industrial exhausts, particles from tire and brake wear, dust from paved roads or potholes, and dust from construction sites. Road dust is a significant source contributing to the generation and release of particulate matter into the atmosphere. Control of road dust is a significant challenge in urban areas, road dust may be suppressed by mechanical methods like street sweeper vehicles equipped with vacuum cleaners, vegetable oil sprays, or with water sprayers. Improvements in automotive engineering have reduced the amount of PM10s produced by road traffic, coal dust is responsible for the lung disease known as pneumoconiosis, including black lung disease that occurs among coal miners
16.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
17.
Washington, D.C.
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Washington, D. C. formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D. C. is the capital of the United States. The signing of the Residence Act on July 16,1790, Constitution provided for a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Congress and the District is therefore not a part of any state. The states of Maryland and Virginia each donated land to form the federal district, named in honor of President George Washington, the City of Washington was founded in 1791 to serve as the new national capital. In 1846, Congress returned the land ceded by Virginia, in 1871. Washington had an population of 681,170 as of July 2016. Commuters from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the population to more than one million during the workweek. The Washington metropolitan area, of which the District is a part, has a population of over 6 million, the centers of all three branches of the federal government of the United States are in the District, including the Congress, President, and Supreme Court. Washington is home to national monuments and museums, which are primarily situated on or around the National Mall. The city hosts 176 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of international organizations, trade unions, non-profit organizations, lobbying groups. A locally elected mayor and a 13‑member council have governed the District since 1973, However, the Congress maintains supreme authority over the city and may overturn local laws. D. C. residents elect a non-voting, at-large congressional delegate to the House of Representatives, the District receives three electoral votes in presidential elections as permitted by the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1961. Various tribes of the Algonquian-speaking Piscataway people inhabited the lands around the Potomac River when Europeans first visited the area in the early 17th century, One group known as the Nacotchtank maintained settlements around the Anacostia River within the present-day District of Columbia. Conflicts with European colonists and neighboring tribes forced the relocation of the Piscataway people, some of whom established a new settlement in 1699 near Point of Rocks, Maryland. 43, published January 23,1788, James Madison argued that the new government would need authority over a national capital to provide for its own maintenance. Five years earlier, a band of unpaid soldiers besieged Congress while its members were meeting in Philadelphia, known as the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, the event emphasized the need for the national government not to rely on any state for its own security. However, the Constitution does not specify a location for the capital, on July 9,1790, Congress passed the Residence Act, which approved the creation of a national capital on the Potomac River. The exact location was to be selected by President George Washington, formed from land donated by the states of Maryland and Virginia, the initial shape of the federal district was a square measuring 10 miles on each side, totaling 100 square miles. Two pre-existing settlements were included in the territory, the port of Georgetown, Maryland, founded in 1751, many of the stones are still standing
18.
Associated Press
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The Associated Press is an American multinational nonprofit news agency headquartered in New York City that operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. The AP is owned by its contributing newspapers and radio and television stations in the United States, all of which stories to the AP. Most of the AP staff are members and are represented by the Newspaper Guild, which operates under the Communications Workers of America. As of 2007, news collected by the AP was published and republished by more than 1,700 newspapers, in addition to more than 5,000 television, the photograph library of the AP consists of over 10 million images. The AP operates 243 news bureaus in 120 countries and it also operates the AP Radio Network, which provides newscasts twice hourly for broadcast and satellite radio and television stations. Many newspapers and broadcasters outside the United States are AP subscribers, as part of their cooperative agreement with the AP, most member news organizations grant automatic permission for the AP to distribute their local news reports. The AP employs the inverted pyramid formula for writing that enables the news outlets to edit a story to fit its available publication area without losing the storys essentials. Cutbacks at rival United Press International in 1993 left the AP as the United States primary news service, although UPI still produces and distributes stories and photos daily. Other English-language news services, such as the BBC, Reuters, some historians believe that the Tribune joined at this time, documents show it was a member in 1849. The New York Times became a member shortly after its founding in September 1851, initially known as the New York Associated Press, the organization faced competition from the Western Associated Press, which criticized its monopolistic news gathering and price setting practices. The revelations led to the demise of the NYAP and in December 1892, when the AP was founded, news became a salable commodity. The invention of the press allowed the New York Tribune in the 1870s to print 18,000 papers per hour. During the Civil War and Spanish–American War, there was a new incentive to print vivid, Melville Stone, who had founded the Chicago Daily News in 1875, served as AP General Manager from 1893 to 1921. He embraced the standards of accuracy, impartiality, and integrity, the cooperative grew rapidly under the leadership of Kent Cooper, who built up bureau staff in South America, Europe and, the Middle East. He introduced the telegraph typewriter or teletypewriter into newsrooms in 1914, in 1935, AP launched the Wirephoto network, which allowed transmission of news photographs over leased private telephone lines on the day they were taken. This gave AP a major advantage over other media outlets. While the first network was only between New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, eventually AP had its network across the whole United States, in 1945, the Supreme Court of the United States held in Associated Press v. The decision facilitated the growth of its main rival United Press International, AP entered the broadcast field in 1941 when it began distributing news to radio stations, it created its own radio network in 1974
19.
Boise City, Oklahoma
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Boise City /ˈbɔɪs/ is a city in and the county seat of Cimarron County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 1,266 at the 2010 census, a decline of 14.6 percent from 1,483 in 2000, according to the Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, the origin of the town name is unclear. They sold 3,000 lots to buyers who discovered, on their arrival, in addition to using false publicity, the three men did not have title to the lots they sold. Stanley and Kline were convicted of fraud and sent to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. Stanley and Kline served two terms in the penitentiary. Douglas died of tuberculosis before beginning his sentence, the town nevertheless took shape and incorporated on July 20,1925. Boise Citys prosperity in the 1930s was severely affected by its location at the heart of the Dust Bowl region, Boise City was the location of an unusual event during World War II when it was mistakenly bombed by a friendly U. S. bomber crew during training. The bombing occurred on July 5,1943, at approximately 12,30 a. m. by a B‑17 Flying Fortress Bomber and this occurred because pilots performing target practice became disoriented and mistook the lights around the town square as their target. No one was killed in the attack, but the pilots were embarrassed, for the 50th anniversary of the incident, the crew of the bomber was invited back to Boise City, but all members declined. The former radio operator did, however, send a tape that was played at the celebration. Boise City is located at 36°43′48″N 102°30′41″W, according to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 1.3 square miles, all land. Boise City is closer to the capitals of both Colorado and New Mexico than it is to Oklahoma City, denver, Colorado, is 303 miles and Santa Fe, New Mexico, is 261 miles, while Oklahoma City is 326 miles away. From Boise City, one can drive to four states in under an hour. Boise City experiences a climate with cool, dry winters and long, hot. As of the census of 2000, there were 1,483 people,610 households, the population density was 1,180.6 people per square mile. There were 752 housing units at a density of 598.7 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 81. 7% White,0. 2% African American,1. 7% Native American,0. 3% Asian,13. 4% from other races, hispanic or Latino of any race were 21. 0% of the population. 33. 1% of all households were made up of individuals and 18. 4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older, the average household size was 2.36 and the average family size was 2.99
20.
Black Sunday (storm)
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Black Sunday refers to a particularly severe dust storm that occurred on April 14,1935, as part of the Dust Bowl. It was one of the worst dust storms in American history and it caused immense economic and it is estimated to have displaced 300 million tons of topsoil from the prairie area in the US. On the afternoon of April 14, the residents of the Plains States were forced to cover as a dust storm, or black blizzard. The storm hit the Oklahoma Panhandle and Northwestern Oklahoma first, and it hit Beaver around 4,00 p. m. Boise City around 5,15 p. m. and Amarillo, Texas, the conditions were the most severe in the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles, but the storms effects were felt in other surrounding areas. The storm was due to the high winds that hit the area that day. The combination of drought, erosion, bare soil, and winds caused the dust to fly freely, the loose dust flying around was enough to inhale, and many people suffocated with the dust filling their lungs. The black blizzards started in the Eastern states in 1930, affecting agriculture from Maine to Arkansas, by 1934 they had reached the Great Plains, stretching from North Dakota to Texas, and from the Mississippi River Valley to the Rocky Mountains. The Dust Bowl received its name following the disastrous Black Sunday storm in April 1935, when reporter Robert L. Geiger referred to the region as The Dust Bowl in his account of the storm. During a massive drought that hit the United States in the 1930s, the lack of rainfall, snowfall, and moisture in the air dried out the top soil in most of the countrys farming regions. The destruction caused by the dust storms, and especially by the storm on Black Sunday, caused hundreds of thousands of people to relocate, poor migrants from the American Southwest flooded California, overtaxing the states health and employment infrastructure. In 1935, after the damage caused by these storms, Congress passed the Soil Conservation Act. The SCS was created in an attempt to provide guidance for owners and land users to reduce soil erosion, improve forest and field land and conserve. During the 1930s, many residents of the Dust Bowl kept accounts and journals of their lives, collections of accounts of the dust storms during the 1930s have been compiled over the years and are now available in book collections and online. People caught in their own yards grope for the doorstep, cars come to a standstill, for no light in the world can penetrate that swirling murk…. The nightmare is deepest during the storms, but on the occasional bright day and the usual gray day we cannot shake from it. We live with the dust, eat it, sleep with it, watch it strip us of possessions, lawrence Svobida was a wheat farmer in Kansas during the 1930s. He experienced the period of dust storms, and the effect that they had on the surrounding environment and his observations and feelings are available in his memoirs, Farming the Dust Bowl
21.
Salient (geography)
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A salient is an elongated protrusion of a geopolitical entity, such as a subnational entity or a sovereign state. While similar to a peninsula in shape, a salient is not surrounded by water on three sides and connected to a geographical mainland, instead, it is delimited by a land border on at least two sides and extends out from the larger geographical body of the administrative unit. In American English the term panhandle is often used to describe a long and narrow salient. Less common descriptors include chimney and bootheel, the term salient is derived from military salients. The term panhandle derives from the part of a cooking pan. Although Utah, like Nebraska, has a protrusion from its otherwise straight border, the six northwest Cook County, Illinois townships, outside of Chicago. The Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway was often called the Panhandle, as it crossed the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia
22.
United States dollar
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The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States and its insular territories per the United States Constitution. It is divided into 100 smaller cent units, the circulating paper money consists of Federal Reserve Notes that are denominated in United States dollars. The U. S. dollar was originally commodity money of silver as enacted by the Coinage Act of 1792 which determined the dollar to be 371 4/16 grain pure or 416 grain standard silver, the currency most used in international transactions, it is the worlds primary reserve currency. Several countries use it as their currency, and in many others it is the de facto currency. Besides the United States, it is used as the sole currency in two British Overseas Territories in the Caribbean, the British Virgin Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands. A few countries use the Federal Reserve Notes for paper money, while the country mints its own coins, or also accepts U. S. coins that can be used as payment in U. S. dollars. After Nixon shock of 1971, USD became fiat currency, Article I, Section 8 of the U. S. Constitution provides that the Congress has the power To coin money, laws implementing this power are currently codified at 31 U. S. C. Section 5112 prescribes the forms in which the United States dollars should be issued and these coins are both designated in Section 5112 as legal tender in payment of debts. The Sacagawea dollar is one example of the copper alloy dollar, the pure silver dollar is known as the American Silver Eagle. Section 5112 also provides for the minting and issuance of other coins and these other coins are more fully described in Coins of the United States dollar. The Constitution provides that a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and that provision of the Constitution is made specific by Section 331 of Title 31 of the United States Code. The sums of money reported in the Statements are currently being expressed in U. S. dollars, the U. S. dollar may therefore be described as the unit of account of the United States. The word dollar is one of the words in the first paragraph of Section 9 of Article I of the Constitution, there, dollars is a reference to the Spanish milled dollar, a coin that had a monetary value of 8 Spanish units of currency, or reales. In 1792 the U. S. Congress passed a Coinage Act, Section 20 of the act provided, That the money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars, or units. And that all accounts in the offices and all proceedings in the courts of the United States shall be kept and had in conformity to this regulation. In other words, this act designated the United States dollar as the unit of currency of the United States, unlike the Spanish milled dollar the U. S. dollar is based upon a decimal system of values. Both one-dollar coins and notes are produced today, although the form is significantly more common
23.
Okie
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An Okie is a resident, native, or cultural descendant of Oklahoma. Like most terms that disparage specific groups, it was first applied by the dominant cultural group and it is derived from the name of the state, similar to Texan or Tex for someone from Texas, or Arkie or Arkansawyer for a native of Arkansas. In the 1930s in California, the term came to refer to very poor migrants from Oklahoma, the Dust Bowl and the Okie migration of the 1930s brought in over a million newly displaced people, many headed to the farm labor jobs advertised in Californias Central Valley. Dunbar-Ortiz argues that Okie denotes much more than being from Oklahoma, by 1950, four million individuals, or one quarter of all persons born in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, or Missouri, lived outside the region, primarily in the West. Prominent Okies in the 1930s included Woody Guthrie, most prominent in the late 1960s and 1970s were country musician Merle Haggard and writer Gerald Haslam. S. Californians began calling all migrants by that name, even though many newcomers were not actually Oklahomans, the migrants included people from Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, Colorado and New Mexico, but were all referred to as Okies and Arkies. More of the migrants were from Oklahoma than any state. Ben Reddick, a free-lance journalist and later publisher of the Paso Robles Daily Press, is credited with first using the term Oakie, in the mid-1930s and he noticed the OK abbreviation on many of the migrants license plates and referred to them in his article as Oakies. The first known usage was an unpublished private postcard from 1907, many West Coast residents and some politically motivated writers used Okie to disparage these poor, white migrant workers and their families. The term became well-known nationwide by John Steinbecks novel The Grapes of Wrath, will Rogers, a famous movie star and political commentator from Oklahoma remarked jokingly that the Okies moving from Oklahoma to California increased the average intelligence of both states. Once the Okie families migrated from Oklahoma to California, they often were forced to work on farms to support their families. Because of the pay, these families were often forced to live on the outskirts of these farms in shanty houses they built themselves. These homes were set up in groups called Squatter Camps or Shanty Towns. Indoor plumbing was inaccessible to these migrant workers, and so they were forced to resort to using outhouses. Unfortunately, because of the space allotted to the migrant workers, their outhouses were normally located near the irrigation ditches. These irrigation ditches provided the Okie families with a water supply, due to this lack of sanitation in these camps, disease ran rampant among the migrant workers and their families. However, what native Californians failed to realize at the time was that these Okie migrant farm workers did not always live in the conditions that the Dust Bowl left them in. In fact, often these families had owned their own farms and had been able to support themselves
24.
California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
25.
Great Depression
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The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression that took place during the 1930s. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, in most countries it started in 1929 and it was the longest, deepest, and most widespread depression of the 20th century. In the 21st century, the Great Depression is commonly used as an example of how far the economy can decline. The depression originated in the United States, after a fall in stock prices that began around September 4,1929. Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide GDP fell by an estimated 15%, by comparison, worldwide GDP fell by less than 1% from 2008 to 2009 during the Great Recession. Some economies started to recover by the mid-1930s, however, in many countries, the negative effects of the Great Depression lasted until the beginning of World War II. The Great Depression had devastating effects in both rich and poor. Personal income, tax revenue, profits and prices dropped, while international trade plunged by more than 50%, unemployment in the U. S. rose to 25% and in some countries rose as high as 33%. Cities all around the world were hit hard, especially dependent on heavy industry. Construction was virtually halted in many countries, farming communities and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by about 60%. Facing plummeting demand with few sources of jobs, areas dependent on primary sector industries such as mining and logging suffered the most. Even after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 optimism persisted for some time, john D. Rockefeller said These are days when many are discouraged. In the 93 years of my life, depressions have come, prosperity has always returned and will again. The stock market turned upward in early 1930, returning to early 1929 levels by April and this was still almost 30% below the peak of September 1929. Together, government and business spent more in the first half of 1930 than in the period of the previous year. On the other hand, consumers, many of whom had suffered losses in the stock market the previous year. In addition, beginning in the mid-1930s, a severe drought ravaged the agricultural heartland of the U. S, by mid-1930, interest rates had dropped to low levels, but expected deflation and the continuing reluctance of people to borrow meant that consumer spending and investment were depressed. By May 1930, automobile sales had declined to below the levels of 1928, prices in general began to decline, although wages held steady in 1930
26.
The Grapes of Wrath
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The Grapes of Wrath is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. The book won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for fiction, due to their nearly hopeless situation, and in part because they are trapped in the Dust Bowl, the Joads set out for California. Along with thousands of other Okies, they seek jobs, land, dignity, the Grapes of Wrath is frequently read in American high school and college literature classes due to its historical context and enduring legacy. A celebrated Hollywood film version, starring Henry Fonda and directed by John Ford, was made in 1940, the narrative begins just after Tom Joad is paroled from McAlester prison, where he had been imprisoned after being convicted of homicide. On his return to his home near Sallisaw, Oklahoma, Tom meets former preacher Jim Casy, whom he remembers from his childhood, when they arrive at Toms childhood farm home, they find it deserted. Disconcerted and confused, Tom and Casy meet their old neighbor, Muley Graves, Graves tells them that the banks have evicted all the farmers, but he refuses to leave the area. The next morning, Tom and Casy go to Uncle Johns, consequently, the Joads have no option but to seek work in California, described in handbills as fruitful and offering high pay. The Joads put everything they have into making the journey, although leaving Oklahoma would violate his parole, Tom decides it is worth the risk, and invites Casy to join him and his family. Traveling west on Route 66, the Joad family find the road crowded with other migrants, in makeshift camps, they hear many stories from others, some returning from California, and the group worries about lessening prospects. The family unit dwindles, too, Granpa dies along the road, and they bury him in a field, Granma dies close to the California state line, led by Ma, the remaining members realize they can only continue, as nothing is left for them in Oklahoma. Reaching California, they find the state oversupplied with labor, so wages are low, the big corporate farmers are in collusion, and smaller farmers suffer from collapsing prices. Nonetheless, as a Federal facility, the camp protects the migrants from harassment by California deputies, in response to the exploitation, Casy becomes a labor organizer and tries to recruit for a labor union. The remaining Joads work as strikebreakers in an orchard, where Casy is involved in a strike that eventually turns violent. When Tom Joad witnesses Casys fatal beating, he kills the attacker, the Joads later leave the orchard for a cotton farm, where Tom is at risk of being arrested for the homicide. Tom bids his farewell and promises to work for the oppressed. Rose of Sharons baby is stillborn, Ma Joad remains steadfast and forces the family through the bereavement. With rain, the Joads dwelling is flooded, and they move to higher ground, in the final chapter of the book, the family takes shelter from the flood in an old barn. Inside, they find a boy and his father, who is dying of starvation
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John Steinbeck
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John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was an American author of 27 books, including 16 novels, six non-fiction books, and five collections of short stories. He is widely known for the comic novels Tortilla Flat and Cannery Row, the multi-generation epic East of Eden, the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Grapes of Wrath is considered Steinbecks masterpiece and part of the American literary canon. In the first 75 years after it was published, it sold 14 million copies, the winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature, he has been called a giant of American letters. His works are widely read abroad and many of his works are considered classics of Western literature, most of Steinbecks work is set in southern and central California, particularly in the Salinas Valley and the California Coast Ranges region. His works frequently explored the themes of fate and injustice, especially as applied to downtrodden or everyman protagonists, Steinbeck was born on February 27,1902, in Salinas, California. He was of German, English, and Irish descent, johann Adolf Großsteinbeck, Steinbecks paternal grandfather, shortened the family name to Steinbeck when he immigrated to the United States. The family farm in Heiligenhaus, Mettmann, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, is still named Großsteinbeck and his father, John Ernst Steinbeck, served as Monterey County treasurer. Johns mother, Olive Hamilton, a school teacher, shared Steinbecks passion for reading and writing. The Steinbecks were members of the Episcopal Church, although Steinbeck later became agnostic, Steinbeck lived in a small rural town, no more than a frontier settlement, set in some of the worlds most fertile land. He spent his summers working on ranches and later with migrant workers on Spreckels sugar beet farms. There he learned of the aspects of the migrant life and the darker side of human nature. He explored his surroundings, walking across local forests, fields, while working at Spreckels Sugar Company, he sometimes worked in their laboratory, which gave him time to write. He had considerable mechanical aptitude and fondness for repairing things he owned, Steinbeck graduated from Salinas High School in 1919 and went on to study English Literature at Stanford University near Palo Alto, leaving, without a degree, in 1925. He travelled to New York City where he took odd jobs while trying to write, when he failed to publish his work, he returned to California and worked in 1928 as a tour guide and caretaker at Lake Tahoe, where he met Carol Henning, his first wife. They married in January 1930 in Los Angeles, where, with friends, the elder Steinbecks gave John free housing, paper for his manuscripts, and from 1928, loans that allowed him to write without looking for work. When those sources failed, Steinbeck and his wife accepted welfare, whatever food they had, they shared with their friends. Carol became the model for Mary Talbot in Steinbecks novel Cannery Row, in 1930, Steinbeck met the marine biologist Ed Ricketts, who became a close friend and mentor to Steinbeck during the following decade, teaching him a great deal about philosophy and biology. Ricketts, usually quiet, yet likable, with an inner self-sufficiency
28.
Woody Guthrie
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He frequently performed with the slogan This machine kills fascists displayed on his guitar. His best-known song is This Land Is Your Land, many of his recorded songs are archived in the Library of Congress. Throughout his life Guthrie was associated with United States Communist groups, Guthrie was married three times and fathered eight children, including American folk musician Arlo Guthrie. Guthrie died from complications of Huntingtons disease, a genetic neurological disorder. Guthrie was born in Okemah, a town in Okfuskee County, Oklahoma. His parents named him after Woodrow Wilson, then Governor of New Jersey, Charles Guthrie was an industrious businessman, owning at one time up to 30 plots of land in Okfuskee County. He was actively involved in Oklahoma politics and was a conservative Democratic candidate for office in the county, when Charles was making stump speeches, he would often be accompanied by his son. Charles Guthrie was involved in the 1911 lynching of Laura and Lawrence Nelson, Woody Guthrie wrote three songs about the event and said that his father, Charles, was later a member of the revived Ku Klux Klan. Guthries early family life was affected by fires, including one that caused the loss of his familys home in Okemah. His sister Clara later died in a fire when Guthrie was seven. Guthries mother, Nora, was afflicted with Huntingtons disease, although the family did not know this at the time and it leads to dementia as well as muscular degeneration. She was eventually committed to the Oklahoma Hospital for the Insane, judging from the circumstances of her fathers death by drowning, researchers suspect that George Sherman suffered from the same hereditary disease. When Nora Guthrie was institutionalized, Woody Guthrie was 14 and his father Charley was living and working in Pampa, Texas, to repay his debts from unsuccessful real estate deals. Woody and his siblings were on their own in Oklahoma, they relied on their eldest brother Roy for support, the 14-year-old Woody Guthrie worked odd jobs around Okemah, begging meals and sometimes sleeping at the homes of family friends. According to one story, Guthrie befriended an African-American blues harmonica player named George, before long, Guthrie bought his own harmonica and began playing along with him. In another interview 14 years later, Guthrie claimed he learned how to play harmonica from a friend, John Woods. He seemed to have an affinity for music and easily learned to play by ear. He began to use his musical skills around town, playing a song for a sandwich or coins, Guthrie easily learned old ballads and traditional English & Scots songs from the parents of friends
29.
Dorothea Lange
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Dorothea Lange was an American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration. Langes photographs humanized the consequences of the Great Depression and influenced the development of documentary photography, born of second generation German immigrants on May 26,1895, at 1041 Bloomfield Street, Hoboken, New Jersey, Dorothea Lange was named Dorothea Margaretta Nutzhorn at birth. She dropped her name and assumed her mothers maiden name after her father abandoned the family when she was 12 years old. The other was her contraction of polio at age seven which left her with a right leg. It formed me, guided me, instructed me, helped me and humiliated me, ive never gotten over it, and I am aware of the force and power of it. Lange graduated from the Wadleigh High School for Girls and was educated in photography at Columbia University in New York City and she was informally apprenticed to several New York photography studios, including that of the famed Arnold Genthe. In 1918, she left New York with a friend to travel the world. By the following year she had opened a portrait studio. She lived across the bay in Berkeley for the rest of her life, in 1920, she married the noted western painter Maynard Dixon, with whom she had two sons, Daniel, born in 1925, and John, born in 1930. With the onset of the Great Depression, Lange turned her camera lens from the studio to the street, in December 1935, she and Dixon divorced and she married economist Paul Schuster Taylor, Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. For the next five years they documented rural poverty and the exploitation of sharecroppers and migrant laborers – Taylor interviewing and gathering economic data, distributed free to newspapers across the country, her poignant images became icons of the era. One of Langes most recognized works is titled Migrant Mother, the woman in the photo is Florence Owens Thompson. In 1960, Lange spoke about her taking the photograph, I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, I made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction. I did not ask her name or her history and she told me her age, that she was thirty-two. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields and she had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean-to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, there was a sort of equality about it. After Lange returned home, she told the editor of a San Francisco newspaper about conditions at the camp, the editor informed federal authorities and published an article that included the photos
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Stratford, Texas
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Stratford is a city in Sherman County, Texas, United States. The population was 2,017 at the 2010 census, up from 1,991 in 2000 and it is the county seat of Sherman County. The city is named for Stratford, Virginia, the home of Robert Edward Lee. Stratford is located at 36°20′10″N 102°4′17″W, according to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 2.0 square miles, all of it land. As of the census of 2000, there were 1,991 people,722 households, the population density was 980.2 people per square mile. There were 794 housing units at a density of 390. 9/sq mi. The racial makeup of the city was 83. 02% White,0. 30% African American,0. 65% Native American,0. 05% Asian,14. 41% from other races, hispanic or Latino of any race were 30. 44% of the population. 24. 4% of all households were made up of individuals and 11. 4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older, the average household size was 2.68 and the average family size was 3.21. In the city, the population was out with 30. 5% under the age of 18,6. 6% from 18 to 24,26. 0% from 25 to 44,21. 4% from 45 to 64. The median age was 36 years, for every 100 females there were 98.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 92.8 males, the median income for a household in the city was $32,656, and the median income for a family was $37,955. Males had an income of $27,113 versus $19,524 for females. The per capita income for the city was $16,790, about 11. 2% of families and 13. 8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 18. 7% of those under age 18 and 13. 8% of those age 65 or over. The city of Stratford is served by the Stratford Independent School District and home to the Stratford High School Elks
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100th meridian west
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The 100th meridian west forms a great circle with the 80th meridian east. Dodge City, Kansas lies exactly at the intersection of the Arkansas River, the type of agriculture west of the meridian typically relies heavily on irrigation. Historically the meridian has often taken as a rough boundary between the eastern and western United States. White settlement, spreading westward after the American Civil War, settled the area around this meridian during the 1870s, wallace Stegners Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, is a biography of John Wesley Powell, an explorer of the American West. The song At the Hundredth Meridian by The Tragically Hip is about the 100th meridian west, specifically in Canada, 99th meridian west 101st meridian west Rain follows the plow
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High Plains (United States)
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The southern region of the Western High Plains ecology region contains the geological formation known as Llano Estacado which can be seen from a short distance or from miles away on satellite maps. From east to west, the High Plains rise in elevation from around 1,160 feet to over 7,800 feet. The term Great Plains, for the region west of about the 96th or 98th meridian, nevin Fennemans 1916 study, Physiographic Subdivision of the United States, brought the term Great Plains into more widespread usage. Prior to 1916, the region was almost invariably called the High Plains, today the term High Plains is usually used for a subregion instead of the whole of the Great Plains. The High Plains has a cold semi-arid climate—Köppen BSk—receiving between 10–20 inches of precipitation annually, due to low moisture and high elevation, the High Plains commonly experiences wide ranges and extremes in temperature. This is the record for the greatest temperature change in 24 hours. The region is known for the steady, and sometimes intense, the winds add a considerable wind chill factor in the winter. The development of farms in the High Plains is one of the newest areas of economic development. The High Plains are anomalously high in elevation, an explanation has recently been proposed to explain this high elevation. As the Farallon plate was subducted into the mantle beneath the region, within the crust this water caused the hydration of dense garnet and other phases into lower density amphibole and mica minerals. The resulting increase in crustal volume raised the elevation about one mile, plants endemic to the region are shortgrass prairie, prickly pear cacti and scrub. Agriculture in the forms of ranching and the growing of wheat, corn. Some areas of the High Plains have significant petroleum and natural gas deposits, the combination of oil, natural gas, and wind energy along with plentiful underground water, has allowed some areas to sustain a range of economic activity, including occasional industry. For example, the ASARCO refinery in Amarillo, Texas has been in operation since 1924 due to the plentiful and inexpensive natural gas and water that are needed in metal ore refining. The High Plains has one of the lowest population densities of any region in the continental United States, Wyoming, smaller towns, on the other hand, often struggle to sustain their population. High Plains Regional Climate Center High Plains climatological resources High Plains information - U. S. Department of the Interior Trains on the High Plains Texas counties map showing the ecoregion
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Llano Estacado
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Llano Estacado commonly known as the Staked Plain, is a region in the Southwestern United States that encompasses parts of eastern New Mexico and northwestern Texas. The Llano Estacado lies at the end of the Western High Plains ecoregion of the Great Plains of North America. The Canadian River forms the Llanos northern boundary, separating it from the rest of the High Plains, the Llano has no natural southern boundary, instead blending into the Edwards Plateau near Big Spring, Texas. This geographic area stretches about 250 miles north to south, and 150 miles east to west and it covers all or part of 33 Texas counties and four New Mexico counties. The landscape is dotted by numerous small lakes, depressions that seasonally fill with water. The Llano Estacado has a semiarid climate, characterized by long, hot summers. Rainfall is very low, the region receives fewer than 23 in of rainfall annually. High summer temperatures mean most of the amount of precipitation is lost to evaporation. The Texas State Historical Society states it covers all or part of 33 Texas counties, six fewer than as depicted by a US Geological Survey map, interstate 40 crosses the northern portion from east of Amarillo to Tucumcari, New Mexico. There was not a stone, nor bit of rising ground, nor a tree, nor a shrub, in the early 18th century, the Comanches expanded their territory into the Llano Estacado, displacing the Apaches who had previously lived there. The region became part of the Comancheria, a Comanche stronghold until the defeat of the tribe in the late 19th century. Rachel Plummer, while a captive of the Comanche in 1836, after his 1852 expedition to explore the headwaters of the Red and Colorado Rivers, General Randolph Marcy wrote, a tree, shrub, or any other herbage to intercept the vision. The almost total absence of water causes all animals to shun it, in his report for the United States Army, When we were upon the high table-land, a view presented itself as boundless as the ocean. Not a tree, shrub, or any object, either animate or inanimate, relieved the dreary monotony of the prospect. The great Sahara of North America and it is a region almost as vast and trackless as the ocean—a land where no man, either savage or civilized permanently abides. A treeless, desolate waste of uninhabitable solitude, which always has been, during the 1854 Marcy-Neighbors expedition, Dr. George Getz Shumard noted, Beyond the mountain appeared a line of high bluffs which in the distance looked like clouds floating upon the horizon. Herman Lehmann was captured by the Apache in 1870 and described the Llano Estacado as the country was open, but not exactly a desert. Robert G. Carter described it in 1871 while pursuing Quanah Parker with Ranald S. Mackenzie. all were over and out of the canyon upon what appeared to be a vast, almost illimitable expanse of prairie
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Rocky Mountains
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The Rocky Mountains, commonly known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than 3,000 miles from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the Southwestern United States. Within the North American Cordillera, the Rockies are somewhat distinct from the Pacific Coast Ranges, the Rocky Mountains were initially formed from 80 million to 55 million years ago during the Laramide orogeny, in which a number of plates began to slide underneath the North American plate. The angle of subduction was shallow, resulting in a belt of mountains running down western North America. Since then, further tectonic activity and erosion by glaciers have sculpted the Rockies into dramatic peaks, at the end of the last ice age, humans started to inhabit the mountain range. The first mention of their present name by a European was in the journal of Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre in 1752, the Rocky Mountains are commonly defined as stretching from the Liard River in British Columbia south to the Rio Grande in New Mexico. The United States definition of the Rockies includes the Cabinet and Salish Mountains of Idaho and their counterparts north of the Kootenai River, the Columbia Mountains, are considered a separate system in Canada, lying to the west of the huge Rocky Mountain Trench. This runs the length of British Columbia from its beginnings in the middle Flathead River valley in western Montana to the bank of the Liard River. The Rockies vary in width from 70 to 300 miles, also west of the Rocky Mountain Trench, farther north and facing the Muskwa Range across the trench, are the Stikine Ranges and Omineca Mountains of the Interior Mountains system of British Columbia. A small area east of Prince George, British Columbia on the side of the Trench. In Canada geographers define three main groups of ranges, the Continental Ranges, Hart Ranges and Muskwa Ranges, the Muskwa and Hart Ranges together comprise what is known as the Northern Rockies. The western edge of the Rockies includes ranges such as the Wasatch near Salt Lake City, the Great Basin and Columbia River Plateau separate these sub-ranges from distinct ranges further to the west, most prominent among which are the Sierra Nevada, Cascade Range and Coast Mountains. The Rocky Mountain System within the United States is a United States physiographic region, the Rocky Mountains are notable for containing the highest peaks in central North America. The ranges highest peak is Mount Elbert located in Colorado at 14,440 feet above sea level, Mount Robson in British Columbia, at 12,972 feet, is the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies. The Continental Divide of the Americas is located in the Rocky Mountains, triple Divide Peak in Glacier National Park is so named because water that falls on the mountain reaches not only the Atlantic and Pacific, but Hudson Bay as well. Farther north in Alberta, the Athabasca and other rivers feed the basin of the Mackenzie River, see Rivers of the Rocky Mountains for a list of rivers. Human population is not very dense in the Rocky Mountains, with an average of four people per square kilometer, however, the human population grew rapidly in the Rocky Mountain states between 1950 and 1990. The 40-year statewide increases in range from 35% in Montana to about 150% in Utah
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Semi-arid climate
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A semi-arid climate or steppe climate is the climate of a region that receives precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not extremely. There are different kinds of climates, depending on such variables as temperature. Semi-arid climates tend to short or scrubby vegetation, with semi-arid areas usually dominated by either grasses or shrubs. To determine if a location has a climate, the precipitation threshold must first be determined. If the areas precipitation is less than the threshold but more than half the threshold. Hot semi-arid climates tend to be located in the tropics and subtropics and these climates tend to have hot, sometimes extremely hot, summers and warm to cool winters, with some to minimal precipitation. Hot semi-arid climates are most commonly found around the fringes of subtropical deserts, hot semi-arid climates are most commonly found in Africa, Australia and South Asia. In Australia, a portion of the Outback surrounding the central desert regions lies within the hot semi-arid climate regime. Hot semi-arid climates can also be found in North America, primarily in Mexico, areas of Texas near Mexico, cold semi-arid climates tend to be located in temperate zones or elevated portions in subtropical zones. They are typically found in continental interiors some distance from bodies of water. Cold semi-arid climates usually feature warm and dry summers, though their summers are not quite as hot as those of hot semi-arid climates. Unlike hot semi-arid climates, areas with cold semi-arid climates tend to have cold winters and these areas usually see some snowfall during the winter, though snowfall is much lower than at locations at similar latitudes with more humid climates. These large diurnal temperature variations are seen in hot semi-arid climates. Cold semi-arid climates are most commonly found in Asia and North America, however, they can also be found in Northern Africa, South Africa, Europe, sections of South America and sections of interior southern Australia and New Zealand. As a result of this, some areas can have climates that are classified as hot or cold depending on the isotherm used. One such location is San Diego, California, which has cool summers for the due to prevailing winds off the ocean. Arid Forest Research Institute Continental climate Dust Bowl Goyders Line Pallisers Triangle Köppen climate classification Wave height Ustic
36.
Shortgrass prairie
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The shortgrass prairie is an ecosystem located in the Great Plains of North America. The prairie includes lands to the west as far as the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and extends east as far as Nebraska. The prairie stretches through parts of Alberta, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Kansas, and passes south through the plains of Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas. The prairie was formerly maintained by grazing pressure of American bison, the two most dominant grasses in the shortgrass prairie are blue grama and buffalograss, the two less dominant grasses in the prairie are greasegrass and sideoats grama. Due to its climate, the shortgrass prairie receives on average less precipitation than that of the tall. The shortgrass prairie has a human history. The Kiowa, Comanche, and Arapahoe peoples occupied the land, hunting bison, seasonally, these tribes would stage hunts in the adjacent mountains such as the Rocky Mountains. To manage the prairie these tribes and their predecessors likely used fire and they would create fuel breaks, a gap in vegetation or other combustible material that acts as a barrier to slow or stop the progress of a brushfire or wildfire. A firebreak may occur naturally in areas without vegetation or other fuel, such as a river and these fuel breaks would also entice large herbivores to patches of fresh new growth. European explorers, trappers, and fur traders began to settle the shortgrass prairie and they developed an extractive economy that led to the later growth and industrialization of the prairie. In the mid- and late 19th century the railroads expanded transportation channels, helping to increase settlement, predominantly in rural, while more people began to settle in the prairie, large-scale cattle and sheep ranching increased as well. This later led to the development of gold, silver, in the 1920s, El Niño played a big role in the success of crop growing in the short grass plains. El Niño caused more precipitation throughout the prairie, promoting plant growth, the success encouraged farmers to buy more efficient farming equipment. With the new equipment, farmers turned up the native land, by the time the 1930s came around, it was too late to protect the soil with grass. The unprotected soil contributed to the Dust Bowl by being blown around, the Food Security Act of 1985 allowed for lower commodity prices and income supports. This Act also laid the foundation for the dairy herd buyout program, the Act made changes to several other USDA programs. Today much of the prairie is grazed by domestic livestock. However, energy and mining exploration have increased, the shortgrass prairie is a long thin stretch of territory that starts at the top of the country and makes its way to the bottom
37.
Great American Desert
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The term Great American Desert was used in the 19th century to describe the western part of the Great Plains east of the Rocky Mountains in North America to about the 100th meridian. In colonial times, the desert was often used to describe treeless or uninhabited lands whether they were arid or not. By the 19th century, the term had begun to take on its modern meaning and it was long thought that treeless lands were not good for agriculture, thus the term desert also had the connotation of unfit for farming. While the High Plains are not a desert in the modern sense, the region is mostly semi-arid grassland and steppe. Today much of the region supports agriculture through the use of water irrigation. But in the 19th century, the relative lack of water and wood made it seem unfit for farming. When the region was obtained by the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, President Jefferson wrote of the immense, zebulon Pike wrote these vast plains of the western hemisphere, may become in time equally celebrated as the sandy deserts of Africa. His map included a comment in the region, not a stick of timber, in 1823, Major Stephen Long, a government surveyor and leader of the next official exploration expedition, produced a map labeling the area the Great American Desert. While many other travelers reported similar conditions and conclusions, there were problems in the interpretation, by the 19th century, the word had begun to assume its modern sense, evoking images of sandy wastelands. Yet descriptions of the American High Plains almost always included comments about Innumerable Herds of Buffaloes, the regions relative lack of water and wood affected the development of the United States. Settlers heading westward often attempted to pass through the region as quickly as possible en route to what was considered to be better land farther west and these early settlers gave telling names to the various streams of the region, such as Sweetwater Creek or Poison Creek. Because it was not considered desirable, the area one of the last strongholds of independent American Indians. Railroad interests seeking rights-of-way through the region benefited from the popular belief that the land was commercially valueless. By the mid-19th century, people had begun settling in the region despite its poor reputation, experts of the era proposed theories that maintained the earlier reports had been accurate and the climate had changed. Some even credited the settlers themselves as having caused the change by planting crops, the slogan rain follows the plow was created to describe this belief. Dust Bowl High Plains Llano Estacado Wind power in the United States
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Plantation (settlement or colony)
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Plantation was an early method of colonization where settlers went in order to establish a permanent or semi-permanent colonial base, for example for planting tobacco or cotton. Such plantations were also intended to promote Western culture and Christianity among nearby indigenous peoples. Although the term planter to refer to a settler first appears as early as the 16th-century, the term plantation was applied to the large farms that were the economical basis of many of the 17th-century American colonies. The peak of the economy in the Caribbean was in the 18th century. Most of that time Britain prospered as the top slaving nation in the Atlantic world, more than 2,500,000 slaves were transported to the Caribbean plantations between 1690 and 1807. In 1789 the French colony of Saint-Domingue, producer of 40 percent of the sugar, was the most valuable colony on earth. Slaves outnumbered whites and free people of color by at least eight to one, but provided all of the manual labor. Slave labor made sugar production profitable, importing sugar to Great Britain resulted in a dramatic change in the eating habits of Britons, one of the greatest in human history. In 1700, Britons used an average of four pounds of sugar a year, the Plantations of Ireland were an instrument of retribution and colonization after several Irish rebellions against English rule throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. The largest settlement, the Plantation of Ulster in the part of the island, was established following the rebellion of Hugh Roe ODonnell. The plantations were seen as part of process that would Anglicise Ireland, lands were seized from the native landowners both as punishment for rebellion and as punishment for remaining Catholic rather than conforming to the established church. These lands were given to English Protestant settlers who would be loyal to the Crown, during the Middle Ages, the Scottish government planted Scots-speaking lowland merchant colonies in the Gàidhealtachd, for example at Campbeltown and Cromarty. Jamestown, Virginia was the first permanent English settlement in North America, during the 17th century, the Chesapeake Bay area was immensely hospitable to tobacco cultivation. Ships annually hauled 1.5 million pounds of tobacco out to the Bay by the 1630s, farmers responded to falling prices by growing even more tobacco. The labor supply from Africa was expensive, in the 17th century, farmers relied on indentured servants for labor. To encourage settlement of the colonies, the Crown granted land to colonists who paid for workers, the planters replaced tobacco with other crops after the soils became exhausted in the coastal areas. Cotton was produced on plantations on the Sea Islands off South Carolina, settlers poured into what became known as the Deep South, putting pressure on the federal government to remove the Native American tribes from the Southeast. Cotton was king, and worldwide demand for American cotton resulted in growing wealth among planters in the South, European colonists did not regard the land as belonging to the tens of thousands of Native Americans who occupied it, because their patterns of use were so different
39.
Homestead Acts
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The Homestead Acts were several United States federal laws that gave an applicant ownership of land, typically called a homestead, at little or no cost. The first of the acts, the Homestead Act of 1862, any adult who had never taken up arms against the U. S. government could apply. Women and immigrants who had applied for citizenship were eligible, the 1866 Act explicitly included and encouraged blacks to participate. Several additional laws were enacted in the half of the 19th. The Southern Homestead Act of 1866 sought to land ownership inequalities in the south during Reconstruction. The Timber Culture Act of 1873 granted land to a claimant who was required to plant trees—the tract could be added to a homestead claim and had no residency requirement. The Kinkaid Amendment of 1904 granted a section to new homesteaders settling in western Nebraska. An amendment to the Homestead Act of 1862, the Enlarged Homestead Act, was passed in 1909, another amended act, the national Stock-Raising Homestead Act, was passed in 1916 and again increased the land involved, this time to 640 acres. The Homestead Act of 1860 did pass in Congress, but it was vetoed by President James Buchanan, after the Southern states seceded from the Union in 1861, the bill passed and was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln. Daniel Freeman became the first person to file a claim under the new act, between 1862 and 1934, the federal government granted 1.6 million homesteads and distributed 270,000,000 acres of federal land for private ownership. This was a total of 10% of all land in the United States, Homesteading was discontinued in 1976, except in Alaska, where it continued until 1986. About 40% of the applicants who started the process were able to complete it, the Donation Land Claim Act allowed settlers to claim land in the Oregon Territory, then including the modern states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and parts of Wyoming. Settlers were able to claim 320 or 640 acres of land for free between 1850 and 1854, and then at a cost of $1.25 per acres until the law expired in 1855. Southern Democrats had continually fought previous homestead law proposals, as they feared free land would attract European immigrants, after the South seceded and their delegates left Congress in 1861, the Republicans and other supporters from the upper South passed a homestead act. The intent of the first Homestead Act, passed in 1862, was to liberalize the homesteading requirements of the Preemption Act of 1841 and its leading advocates were Andrew Johnson, George Henry Evans and Horace Greeley. The homestead was an area of land in the West granted to any US citizen willing to settle on. The law required a three-step procedure, file an application, improve the land, and file for deed of title. Any citizen who had never taken up arms against the U. S. government and was at least 21 years old or the head of a household, could file an application to claim a land grant
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American Civil War
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The American Civil War was an internal conflict fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865. The Union faced secessionists in eleven Southern states grouped together as the Confederate States of America, the Union won the war, which remains the bloodiest in U. S. history. Among the 34 U. S. states in February 1861, War broke out in April 1861 when Confederates attacked the U. S. fortress of Fort Sumter. The Confederacy grew to eleven states, it claimed two more states, the Indian Territory, and the southern portions of the western territories of Arizona. The Confederacy was never recognized by the United States government nor by any foreign country. The states that remained loyal, including border states where slavery was legal, were known as the Union or the North, the war ended with the surrender of all the Confederate armies and the dissolution of the Confederate government in the spring of 1865. The war had its origin in the issue of slavery. The Confederacy collapsed and 4 million slaves were freed, but before his inauguration, seven slave states with cotton-based economies formed the Confederacy. The first six to declare secession had the highest proportions of slaves in their populations, the first seven with state legislatures to resolve for secession included split majorities for unionists Douglas and Bell in Georgia with 51% and Louisiana with 55%. Alabama had voted 46% for those unionists, Mississippi with 40%, Florida with 38%, Texas with 25%, of these, only Texas held a referendum on secession. Eight remaining slave states continued to reject calls for secession, outgoing Democratic President James Buchanan and the incoming Republicans rejected secession as illegal. Lincolns March 4,1861 inaugural address declared that his administration would not initiate a civil war, speaking directly to the Southern States, he reaffirmed, I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the United States where it exists. I believe I have no right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. After Confederate forces seized numerous federal forts within territory claimed by the Confederacy, efforts at compromise failed, the Confederates assumed that European countries were so dependent on King Cotton that they would intervene, but none did, and none recognized the new Confederate States of America. Hostilities began on April 12,1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, while in the Western Theater the Union made significant permanent gains, in the Eastern Theater, the battle was inconclusive in 1861–62. The autumn 1862 Confederate campaigns into Maryland and Kentucky failed, dissuading British intervention, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which made ending slavery a war goal. To the west, by summer 1862 the Union destroyed the Confederate river navy, then much of their western armies, the 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River. In 1863, Robert E. Lees Confederate incursion north ended at the Battle of Gettysburg, Western successes led to Ulysses S. Grants command of all Union armies in 1864
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First Transcontinental Railroad
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The rail line was built by three private companies over public lands provided by extensive US land grants. Construction was financed by state and US government subsidy bonds as well as by company issued mortgage bonds. The Western Pacific Railroad Company built 132 mi of track from Oakland/Alameda to Sacramento, the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California constructed 690 mi eastward from Sacramento to Promontory Summit, Utah Territory. And the Union Pacific built 1,085 mi from the eastern terminus at Council Bluffs near Omaha. The railroad opened for traffic on May 10,1869 when CPRR President Leland Stanford ceremonially drove the gold Last Spike with a silver hammer at Promontory Summit. The coast-to-coast railroad connection revolutionized the settlement and economy of the American West and it brought the western states and territories into alignment with the northern Union states and made transporting passengers and goods coast-to-coast considerably quicker and less expensive. Paddle steamers linked Sacramento to the cities and their facilities in the San Francisco Bay until 1869. The roads rail terminus was moved two months later to the Oakland Long Wharf about a mile to the north, Service between San Francisco and Oakland Pier continued to be provided by ferry. The CPRR eventually purchased 53 miles of UPRR-built grade from Promontory Summit to Ogden, the transcontinental line was popularly known as the Overland Route after the principal passenger rail service that operated over the length of the line until 1962. In 1847 he submitted to the U. S. Congress a Proposal for a Charter to Build a Railroad from Lake Michigan to the Pacific Ocean, Congress agreed to support the idea. Under the direction of the Department of War, the Pacific Railroad Surveys were conducted from 1853 through 1855 and these included an extensive series of expeditions of the American West seeking possible routes. A report on the explorations described alternative routes and included an amount of information about the American West. It included the natural history and illustrations of reptiles, amphibians, birds. The report failed however to include detailed maps of potential routes needed to estimate the feasibility, cost. This in part motivated the United States to complete the Gadsden Purchase, the U. S. Congress was strongly divided on where the eastern terminus of the railroad should be—in a southern or northern city. Three routes were considered, A northern route roughly along the Missouri River through present-day northern Montana to Oregon Territory and this was considered impractical due to the rough terrain and extensive winter snows. A central route following the Platte River in Nebraska through to the South Pass in Wyoming, following most of the Oregon Trail, snow on this route remained a concern. A southern route across Texas, New Mexico Territory, the Sonora desert, connecting to Los Angeles, surveyors found during a 1848 survey that the best route lay south of the border between the United States and Mexico
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Rain follows the plow
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Rain follows the plow is the conventional name for a now-discredited theory of climatology that was popular throughout the American West and Australia during the late 19th century. The phrase was employed as a summation of the theory by Charles Dana Wilber, to be more concise, Rain follows the plow. The theory was promoted in the 1870s as a justification for the settlement of the Great Plains. It was also used to justify the expansion of growing on marginal land in South Australia during the same period. The theory was refuted by climatologists and is now definitively regarded as pure superstition. The theory arose in the late 1860s and 1870s during the expansion of European-American settlement west of the Missouri River. The definition can be found in the Kansas Journey Textbook as well and this was the traditional boundary line between the humid and semi-arid portions of central North America. Specifically, in the part of the decade, white settlement had spread into central. Emigrants on the Oregon Trail began reporting that the land in western Nebraska, previously known for its yellowed, out of this evidence, some scientists concluded that the apparent increase in rain was due to the settlement and the effects of cultivation. One of the most prominent exponents of the theory in the United States was Cyrus Thomas, after studying the recent history of Colorado, he concluded that the increase in moisture was permanent, and that it coincided exactly with the first settlers cultivating of the land. Thomas and other climatologists offered a variety of explanations for the theory, a common idea was that the plowing of the soil for cultivation exposed the soils moisture to the sky. In addition, newly planted trees and shrubs increased rainfall as well, as did smoke from trains, another hypothesis stated that the increased vibrations in the atmosphere due to human activity created additional clouds, from which rain fell. This idea led to the widespread dynamiting of the air across the Great Plains in the 1870s, the theory was widely embraced in its day, not only by scientists, but land speculators and emigrants. William Gilpin, the first territorial governor of Colorado and an aide to President Abraham Lincoln, was a proponent of this theory, Gilpin was a strong believer in the idea of Manifest Destiny. One of his books was called The Mission of the North American People and he strongly promoted western settlement and invoked this theory as one of his reasons for people to migrate west. Climatologists now understand that increased vegetation and urbanization can result in increased precipitation, the effect, however, is local in scope, with increased rainfall typically coming at the expense of rainfall in nearby areas. It cannot result in a change for an entire region. They also understand that the Great Plains had had a wetter than usual few seasons while this theory was developed, when normal arid conditions returned, homesteaders suffered
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Ranch
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A ranch is an area of land, including various structures, given primarily to the practice of ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle or sheep for meat or wool. The word most often applies to livestock-raising operations in Mexico, the Western United States and Canada, people who own or operate a ranch are called ranchers, cattlemen, or stockgrowers. Ranching is also a used to raise less common livestock such as elk, American bison or even ostrich, emu. Ranches generally consist of areas, but may be of nearly any size. In the western United States, many ranches are a combination of owned land supplemented by grazing leases on land under the control of the federal Bureau of Land Management. If the ranch includes arable or irrigated land, the ranch may also engage in an amount of farming, raising crops for feeding the animals, such as hay. Ranches that cater exclusively to tourists are called guest ranches or, colloquially, most working ranches do not cater to guests, though they may allow private hunters or outfitters onto their property to hunt native wildlife. Ranching is part of the iconography of the Wild West as seen in Western movies, the person who owns and manages the operation of a ranch is usually called a rancher, but the terms cattleman, stockgrower, or stockman are also sometimes used. If this individual in charge of management is an employee of the actual owner. A rancher who primarily raises young stock sometimes is called an operator or a cow-calf man. This person is usually the owner, though in cases, particularly where there is absentee ownership. The people who are employees of the rancher and involved in handling livestock are called a number of terms, including cowhand, ranch hand, people exclusively involved with handling horses are sometimes called wranglers. Ranching and the tradition originated in Spain, out of the necessity to handle large herds of grazing animals on dry land from horseback. During the Reconquista, members of the Spanish nobility and various military orders received large land grants that the Kingdom of Castile had conquered from the Moors and these landowners were to defend the lands put into their control and could use them for earning revenue. When the Conquistadors came to the Americas in the 16th century, followed by settlers, they brought their cattle, huge land grants by the Spanish government, part of the hacienda system, allowed large numbers of animals to roam freely over vast areas. A number of different traditions developed, often related to the location in Spain from which a settlement originated. For example, many of the traditions of the Jalisco charros in central Mexico come from the Salamanca charros of Castile, however, there were cattle on the eastern seaboard. Deep Hollow Ranch,110 miles east of New York City in Montauk, New York, claims to be the first ranch in the United States, the prairie and desert lands of what today is Mexico and the western United States were well-suited to open range grazing
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Overgrazing
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Overgrazing occurs when plants are exposed to intensive grazing for extended periods of time, or without sufficient recovery periods. It can be caused by either livestock in poorly managed agricultural applications, game reserves and it can also be caused by immobile, travel restricted populations of native or non-native wild animals. The only thing to stop overgrazing is to limit the space to roam around. Cows are the things that causes overgrazing and overgrazing can lead to desertification. It reduces the usefulness, productivity, and biodiversity of the land and is one cause of desertification and erosion, Overgrazing is also seen as a cause of the spread of invasive species of non-native plants and of weeds. Sustainable grassland production is based on grass and grassland management, land management, animal management, grazing management, with sustainable agriculture and agroecology practices, is the foundation of grassland-based livestock production since it affects both animal and plant health and productivity. In some regions of the United States under continuous grazing, overgrazed pastures are predominated by short-grass species such as bluegrass, in all cases, palatable tall grasses such as orchard grass are sparse or non-existent. Under rotational grazing, overgrazed plants do not have time to recover to the proper height between grazing events. The animals resume grazing before the plants have restored carbohydrate reserves, another indicator of overgrazing in some parts of North America is that livestock run out of pasture, and hay needs to be fed early in the fall. In contrast, most areas of the world do not experience the climatic regime as the continental United States. Overgrazing is also indicated in livestock performance and condition, cows having inadequate pasture immediately following their calfs weaning may have poor body condition the following season. This may reduce the health and vigor of cows and calves at calving, also, cows in poor body condition do not cycle as soon after calving, which can result in delayed breeding. This can result in a long calving season, with good cow genetics, nutrition, ideal seasons and controlled breeding 55% to 75% of the calves should come in the first 21 days of the calving season. Poor weaning weights of calves can be caused by insufficient pasture, when cows give less milk, reduction in soil depth, soil organic matter and soil fertility impair the lands future natural and agricultural productivity. Soil fertility can sometimes be mitigated by applying the appropriate lime, however, the loss of soil depth and organic matter takes centuries to correct. Their loss is critical in determining the soils water-holding capacity and how well pasture plants do during dry weather, native plant grass species, both individual bunch grasses and in grasslands, are especially vulnerable. In the continental United States, to prevent overgrazing, match the forage supplement to the herds requirement and this means that a buffer needs to be in the system to adjust for the fastest growth of forages. Another potential buffer is to plant warm-season perennial grasses such as switchgrass and this reduces the area that the livestock can use early in the season, making it easier for them to keep up with the cool-season grasses
45.
Kinkaid Act
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The Kinkaid Act of 1904 is a U. S. statute that amended the 1862 Homestead Act so that one section of public domain land could be acquired free of charge, apart from a modest filing fee. It applied specifically to 37 counties in northwest Nebraska, in the area of the Nebraska Sandhills. The legal provisions of the Kinkaid Act were very similar to those of the Homestead Act, a claimant had to be at least 21 years of age, and a current U. S. citizen or in the process of becoming a citizen. Five years of residency was required to gain title to a claim, the residency requirement was shortened to three years in 1912. A claimant also had to prove that improvements equivalent to $1.25 per acre had been made to the property. Only non-irrigable lands were eligible to be claimed under the provisions of the Kinkaid Act, a 640-acre claim was required to be as compact as possible, and less than two miles in length. A homesteader who already held land in the area at the time of enactment could accumulate additional surrounding available territory in order to acquire a total unit of 640 acres. Commutation was not allowed under the Kinkaid Act, claimants of land under the provisions of the Kinkaid Act were generally referred to as Kinkaiders. The Kinkaid Act was repealed on October 21,1976, the final patent was issued in 1941 on 40 acres of land. The economy of the Nebraska Sandhills region in the late 19th century was dominated by the ranching industry. Large ranches dotted the landscape, utilizing largely-unclaimed lands in the public domain, ranchers would file claims on lands with water access, and use the surrounding public pastures for grazing. Large stockmen sometimes used fraudulent homestead filings from employees and other individuals in order to gain title to surrounding land, a shack would be erected on these fraudulent claims and the claimant would stay there once every six months in order to claim residency. A common tactic was to title to a thin strip of land surrounding a large pasture in the public domain. This prevented anyone else from grazing their cattle in the enclosed area, bartlett Richards and William Comstock, who formed the Spade Ranch, were famous for tactics such as these. The bill never made it to the floor for debate, in his 1902 address to congress, President Theodore Roosevelt made it a priority to settle the “public land problem. ”He appointed a Public Lands Commission in 1903 to look into the issue and recommend solutions. The commission concluded that current land laws had been framed to accommodate humid regions, new land laws would be needed to settle the arid lands west of the 100th meridian. Moses Kinkaid, a congressman from the district of Nebraska. The original bill provided for 1,280 acre homesteads, the committee felt that 640 acres would be a good initial experiment size, and the act could be amended in the future if more land were needed
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Russian Revolution
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The Russian Revolution was a pair of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which dismantled the Tsarist autocracy and led to the eventual rise of the Soviet Union. The Russian Empire collapsed with the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II, in the second revolution that October, the Provisional Government was removed and replaced with a communist state. The February Revolution was a revolution focused around Petrograd, then capital of Russia, in the chaos, members of the Imperial parliament assumed control of the country, forming the Russian Provisional Government. The army leadership felt they did not have the means to suppress the revolution, the February Revolution took place in the context of heavy military setbacks during the First World War, which left much of the Russian Army in a state of mutiny. During this chaotic period there were frequent mutinies, protests and many strikes, when the Provisional Government chose to continue fighting the war with Germany, the Bolsheviks and other socialist factions campaigned for stopping the conflict. The Bolsheviks turned workers militias under their control into the Red Guards over which they exerted substantial control, the Bolsheviks appointed themselves as leaders of various government ministries and seized control of the countryside, establishing the Cheka to quash dissent. To end Russia’s participation in the First World War, the Bolshevik leaders signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany in March 1918, soon after, civil war erupted among the Reds, the Whites, the independence movements and the non-Bolshevik socialists. It continued for years, during which the Bolsheviks defeated both the Whites and all rival socialists. In this way, the Revolution paved the way for the creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922, the Russian Revolution of 1905 was said to be a major factor to the February Revolutions of 1917. The events of Bloody Sunday triggered a line of protests, a council of workers called the St. Petersburg Soviet was created in all this chaos, and the beginning of a communist political protest had begun. World War I prompted a Russian outcry directed at Tsar Nicholas II and it was another major factor contributing to the retaliation of the Russian Communists against their royal opponents. However, the problems were merely administrative, and not industrial as Germany was producing great amounts of munitions whilst constantly fighting on two major battlefronts, the war also developed a weariness in the city, owing to a lack of food in response to the disruption of agriculture. Food scarcity had become a problem in Russia, but the cause of this did not lie in any failure of the harvests. As a result, they tended to hoard their grain and to revert to subsistence farming, thus the cities were constantly short of food. At the same time rising prices led to demands for wages in the factories. The outcome of all this, however, was a criticism of the government rather than any war-weariness. The original fever of excitement, which had caused the name of St. Heavy losses during the war also strengthened thoughts that Tsar Nicholas II was unfit to rule, the Liberals were now better placed to voice their complaints, since they were participating more fully through a variety of voluntary organizations
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World War I
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
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