Peasants & Farmers - BREAD BASKET & DUST BOWL : Notes Class 9 PDF Download

PART-II : BREAD BASKET AND DUST BOWL 

Q1. What was the impact of the westward expansion of the settlers in the USA? 
Ans. Westward expansion of the settlers in the USA had far reaching impacts:
1. Impact on native people: After the American war of independence, the White Americans began to move westward. They started clearing the native from their land. 
2. Impact on the natural resources: the white settlers started exploiting the natural resources. They slashed and burnt forests, pulled up the stumps, cleared the land for cultivation and built log cabins in the forest clearings.
3. Production of wheat increased: from the late 19th century, there was a dramatic expansion of wheat production in USA. In 1910, about 45 million acres of land in USA was under the wheat cultivation which increased to 74 million acres in 1929.
4. New technology: the dramatic expansion was possible only because of the new technology. Farmers were using modern machines to turn the soil. The use of machines allowed the farmers to finish up the work within a short span of time.
5. Impact on the poor: for the poor farmers, machines brought misery. Mechanization had reduced the need for labour and most of the farmers, lost their jobs.
6. Dust bowl tragedy: the extensive use of Prairies was responsible for the Dust Bowl Tragedy. The cultivation of wheat had exposed the soil to wind, resulting in the Dust Bowl.
 

Q2. What were the advantages and disadvantages of the use of mechanical harvesting machine in the USA?
OR What was the importance of new machines for the big farmers? (Only for advantages)
ANS. Advantages: For the big farmers of the Great Plains, these machines had many attractions.
1. The new machines allowed these big farmers to rapidly clear large tracts, break up the soil, remove the grass and prepare the ground for cultivation.
2. The work could be done quickly and with a minimal number of hands.
3. It saved the time of the farmers.
4. It reduced the dependency on workers.
5. It increased the production of crops.
6. Now, it was easy to plough the prairies with the help of modern ploughs.
 

Disadvantages: for the poorer farmer, machines brought misery. 
1. Poor workers lost their jobs as a single machine could do the work of many labourers at the same time.
2. Most of the poor farmers found it difficult to pay back their debts. So most of them were forced to sell their land.
3. Mechanization has reduced the need of labourer. They lost their jobs. 
4. It led to the Dust Bowl Tragedy as Prairies were being extensively ploughed.
5. The over-utilization of machines was also responsible for the great depression of 1930s.
 

Q3. What lessons can we draw from the conversation of the countryside in the USA from a bread basket to a dust bowl?
Ans. The white settlers converted the USA into a bread basket but at very high price.
1. The locals were deprived off their resources and most of them became very poor.
2. For the poor farmers the use of machines brought misery. They found it difficult to pay back their debt, and were forced to sell their land.
3. The overproductions of wheat lead to the Great Agrarian Depression of the 1930s.
4. Over-ploughing of Prairies also lead to Dust Bowl Tragedy. Because of this, the land of plenty became a Dust Bowl. 
5. After 1930s, the government and the settlers realized that they had to respect the ecological condition of each region.
 

Q4. What was the impact of white settler movement towards the west on the American Indians?
Ans. impacts were: 
1. They were driven away from their land.
2. They were massacred and many of their village burnt.
3. They were forced to sign treaties and give up their lands.
 

Q5. Mention any four major features of USA agriculture or the life of the rural people at the end of the 18th century.
Ans. major features of USA agriculture:
1. At the time that common fields were being enclosed in England at the end of the eighteenth century, settled agriculture had not developed on any extensive scale in the USA.
2. Forests covered over 800 million acres and grasslands, 600 million acres.
3. Most of the landscape was not under the control of the White Americans. 
4. Till the 1780s, White Americans settlements were confined to a small narrow strip of coastal land in the east.
5. Several of them were nomadic, some were settled. Many of them lived only by hunting, gathering and fishing; others cultivated corn, beans, tobacco and pumpkin. 
6. Some others were expert trappers through whom European traders had secured their supplies of beaver fur since the sixteenth century. 
 

Q6. ‘From the late 18th century, there was a dramatic expansion of wheat production in the USA.’ Give five reasons for this expansion.
Ans. Reasons were: 
1. The urban population in the USA was growing, and the export market was becoming ever bigger.
2. Increased demand and high prices encouraged farmers to produce wheat. 
3. The introduction of railways made it easy to transport the grains from the wheat growing regions to the eastern coast for export.
4. During the war, there was no supply from Russia. So the whole supply for Europe was in the hands of USA.
5. Introduction of machines also helped in the production. The use of machines allowed the farmers to finish up the work within a short span of time.
 

Q7. Explain the westward expansion of white Settlers of USA.
Ans. the westward expansion of white Settlers of USA was as follows:
1. After the American war of independence from 1775 to 1783 and the formation of the United States of America, the White Americans begun to move westward. By the time, Thomas Jefferson became, the president of the USA in 1800, over 700.000 white settlers had moved on the Appalachian plateau through the passes. Its wilderness could be turned into cultivated fields. Forest timber could be cut for export, animals hunted for skin, mountains mined for gold and minerals.
2. White settlers forced American Indians to give up their lands and move westward. Indians were massacred and many of their villages burnt. As the Indian retreated, the settlers poured in. They came in successive waves. 
3. They settled on the Appalachian plateau by the first decade of the eighteenth century and then moved into the Mississippi valley between 1820 and 1850.
4. They slashed and burnt forests, pulled out stumps, cleared the land for cultivation, and built log cabins in the forest clearings.
5. They cleared larger areas and erected fences around the fields they ploughed the land and sowed corn and wheat. 
 

Q8. Explain the Dust Bowl tragedy.
Or explain the major reasons of Dust Bowl tragedy.
Ans. reasons were: 
1. The expansion of wheat agriculture and overgrazing of the prairies were responsible for the Dust Bowl tragedy.
2. In 1930s, terrifying dust storms began to blow over the southern plains.
3. These dust storms had a great impact on the economic and social life of the people.
4. The black blizzards were responsible for natural disaster in which people were blinded, cattle were suffocated to death and machinery was damaged beyond repair.
5. It was a natural as well as man-made disaster because farmers themselves were responsible for the tragedy.
6. The farmers had recklessly uprooted all vegetation and tractors had turned the soil over, breathing the sod into dust.
 

Q9. Under what circumstances the USA farmer got encouraged to produce more and more wheat?
Ans. Circumstances were:
1. From the late 19th century, the wheat production in the USA underwent a dramatic expansion because the urban population was growing and the export market was becoming bigger. As a result demand for wheat when up which resulted into high price of wheat. This, encourage the farmers to produce more wheat.
2. The spread of railways made it easy to transport the grain from the wheat growing regions to the eastern coast for export.
3. By the early 20th century, the demand for wheat rose even higher and during the First World War, the world market boomed.
4. Russian supplies of wheat were cut off and the USA had to feed the entire Europe. The farmers respond vigorously to the need of the time and they began producing more wheat.
5. Introduction of machines also helped in the production. The use of machines allowed the farmers to finish up the work within a short span of time.
 

Q10. ‘The new technology in agriculture in the 19th century created the grounds for the Great Agrarians Depression of 1930s.’ justify by giving examples.
Ans. Mechanization had reduced the need for labour and the boom of the late 19th and the early 20th centuries to have come to end by the mid 1920s. After that, most farmers faced trouble. Production had expanded so rapidly during the war and post war years that there was surplus. Unsold stalks piled up, store houses overflowed with grain and vast amount of corn and wheat were turned into animal feed. Wheat prices fell and export market collapsed. This created the ground for the Great Agrarians Depression of the 1930s that ruined wheat farmers everywhere.