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Grasshoppers In The Dust Bowl Essay

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Grasshoppers In the Dust Bowl
Grasshoppers aren’t normally referred to as a source of destruction. They’re small insects that kids try to catch in their backyards. But did you know that the small and seemingly harmless insects caused more destruction in the Dust Bowl than the drought and “black-blizzard”? This paper will shed light on the overlooked cause, first by comparing the destruction caused by the grasshoppers and dust storms, seeing how the grasshoppers specifically affected the plains, and then looking at the aftermath from both of the causes of the event from the ‘30s.
The damage caused by the dust storms seemed minute next to the damage caused by the grasshoppers. President Roosevelt said in one of his Fireside Chats, “What the sun …show more content…

What the dust destroyed was easier to fix than what the grasshoppers had taken. It was simple to fix blowing soil and dry ground: keep the ground wet. Soil destruction was easily fixed by the Soil Erosion Service, created by Congress, a program that created drainage pipes to keep the ground wet and reverse what the man-made drought had caused (“When the Dust Settled”). Blowing soil was reduced by 65% and didn’t cause damage anymore. The grasshoppers, however, could still come back and were still a threat after picking almost every farm clean of crops Absolutely nothing was left, as Albert Marrin wrote in his book, Years of Dust. This is especially emphasized on page 56, where he says: “All his hopes, all his hard work, had amounted to- nothing” (Marrin 56). The replanting of crops was easier said than done after acre after acre was eaten to the roots by seemingly harmless creatures.
Ultimately, the grasshoppers caused more destruction than the drought. and continued to be a problem after the Dust Bowl ended. After comparing the destruction during and after of the grasshoppers and the dust storms, looking at the destruction the grasshoppers did specifically, and noticing how both events left destruction in their path, grasshoppers did cause more destruction than the man-made storm, and mother nature

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