The Problems and Solutions of Living and Farming on the Plains
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- Created on: 06-06-13 13:23
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- The Problems and Solutions of Living and Farming on the Plains
- Water Shortages
- Water was scarce on the Great Plains
- It was difficult for people to keep themselves and their clothes clean
- Invention of the windmill - 1874
- Water was scarce on the Great Plains
- Used to pump water from underground
- Invention of the windmill - 1874
- Weather Extremes
- It was hot in the summer and cold in the winter
- No solutions
- It was hot in the summer and cold in the winter
- Fuel
- There was no wood to burn for heating and cooking
- Homesteaders used buffalo dung fuel
- There was no wood to burn for heating and cooking
- Dirt and Disease
- Sod houses were difficult to keep clean
- They lived with pests such as bed bugs, fleas, mice ans snakes
- Difficult for people to keep clean especially with water shortages
- Easy for dirt and disease to develop
- Sod houses were difficult to keep clean
- They lived with pests such as bed bugs, fleas, mice ans snakes
- Easy for dirt and disease to develop
- Building Materials
- Difficult to stop water leeking in when it rained
- Blocks of earth (sods) were used to build houses
- Natural Hazards
- Dry grass meant it was easy for prairie fires to start
- Destroyed crops if they got too big
- Hundred-acre cornfields vanished in a few hours
- Destroyed crops if they got too big
- Dry grass meant it was easy for prairie fires to start
- Protecting Crops
- There was no wood for fencing
- It was difficult to mark land boundaries which can lead to disputes
- There was nothing to protect crops from buffalo or straying cattle
- The invention of barbed wire - 1874
- It was difficult to mark land boundaries which can lead to disputes
- There was no wood for fencing
- The invention of barbed wire - 1874
- Ploughing
- Grasses had dense, tangled roots
- Cast iron ploughs needed constant repairs
- Better farming machinery was developed
- Using a 'sod-buster' - a strong plough
- Ploughing land when there had been heavy rain or snow
- Grasses had dense, tangled roots
- Cast iron ploughs needed constant repairs
- Better farming machinery was developed
- Using a 'sod-buster' - a strong plough
- Ploughing land when there had been heavy rain or snow
- Cast iron ploughs needed constant repairs
- Grasses had dense, tangled roots
- Cast iron ploughs needed constant repairs
- The Plains had never been ploughed before
- Grasses had dense, tangled roots
- Growing Crops
- The crops that they grew were not suited to the weather conditions on the Great Plains
- They grew wheat which was more suitable than corn
- They kept animals rather than just crops
- Russian immigrants untroduced wheat that grew successfully on the Plains because the conditions were similar to those in Russia
- The crops that they grew were not suited to the weather conditions on the Great Plains
- Water Shortages
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