Conservation in the 30s
by Allen Gray
Conservation wasn't an issue in the 30s. Conservation was best known for being a word in Civilian Conservation Corps, a program Roosevelt initiated to put young people to work. Some of the work of the CCC: bridges, trails, parks and campsites plus murals on post office walls are moving reminders of the 30s to this day.
The World had 2 ½ billion people in 1930 as compared to more than 6 billion today. There was room for everyone. There was much to draw from, i.e. topsoil, fish in the streams, game in the field. There was an abundance , so that people weren't into conserving. The depression was a product of economic blundering. We thought we'd never run out of whatever we might need. We just didn't have the money to buy it. Everything was more natural. We didn't add chemicals to nourish the crop and poison the soil to kill the bugs, we had manure wagons, and we spread manure because it didn't cost anything, and we had lots of it. It was the by-product of animals. Chemicals were unknown then. If we could collect it, we spread it and prospered from it. We didn't have herbicides either, so we hoed the cockleburrs and other weeds. Farmers usually used a three year rotation of crops system to keep the ground fertilized...corn, wheat, oats, alfalfa and clover. Soybeans were unheard of. Farmers where I grew up didn't get tractors until after WWII. Many farm animals ran loose inside barbed wire and "hog tight" fences.
Everyone had big gardens and the whole family worked them...preserving the fruits of their labor in "Mason Jars." Housewives didn't butcher chickens, they "dressed chickens." Our own pigs, lambs and sometimes cattle, especially veal, were butchered. We had eggs and fresh churned butter. We baked our own bread and the most wonderful smells would waft out into the fields where we were working. We did go to stores for staples...flour, sugar (we canned our own jams and jellies), coffee and tea. We also made cheese. Something else we did then I don't think we do now..we borrowed a cup of sugar, flour, lard maybe.or whatever else we might need.from our neighbor . passing the time of day while we were there. Those were bootstrap years and farmers were lucky. They could grow their own food. City folks visited farm friends often.mostly for a decent meal. Conservation, back then, was saving the really good cuts for better friends.
Do I make life in the 30s sound preferable to what we have today? If I do, I err. Less complicated...maybe. Farmers worked very hard. Corn brought 10 cents a bushel and pigs sold for 2 ½ cents a pound. And, by the way, four families could live comfortably on a section...160 acres each. Not be possible today...too much conservation.
