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But farmers said they were the victims of this policy, because it increased their costs.įarmers as individuals could do nothing to change the situation. Congress had set the levels high to protect American industry from foreign competition. Some of the tariffs were as high as sixty percent. They opposed the import taxes - tariffs - they had to pay on foreign products. STEVE EMBER: The farmers were angry about the high cost of borrowing money, too. Farmers had to pay to keep their grain there until it was sold. The railroads also owned the big buildings where grain was stored. And railroad prices were very high for farm products-higher than for anything else. The only way to transport their grain was by railroad. One was the high cost of sending their crops to market. The farmers, however, were not satisfied. Much of the grain was sold in Europe and farmers got good prices. Huge crops of wheat and corn were produced. LARRY WEST: The farmers of the plains did well at first. He usually put all his efforts into producing just one or two crops. So a plains farmer had to grow crops that were in big demand. To farm the plains, he needed barbed wire for fences, and plows and other new equipment. But he had to buy the wood and pay the railroad to bring it west. But solving them cost money.Ī farmer could get wood to build his house. STEVE EMBER: Most of the problems on the plains could be solved. And farmers learned techniques for farming in dry weather. This included a plow that could break up the grassland of the plains. But they prevented cattle from pushing over the fences and destroying crops.
#Claimed land in the new world for two different countries skin
The sharp metal barbs tore the skin of the men who stretched it along fence tops. That was the year "barbed wire" was invented. LARRY WEST: The fence problem was solved in eighteen seventy-four. Some of the pumps used windmills for power. Better pumps were built to raise the water to the surface. New equipment was invented for digging deep wells. And as time passed, they found solutions to most of the problems of farming on the Great Plains. STEVE EMBER: Most of the settlers, however, were strong people.
Sometimes months would pass without rain, and the crops would die. And although the land seemed rich, it was difficult to prepare for planting. With few trees to cut for fuel, they collected whatever they could find. They had little fuel for heating and cooking. LARRY WEST: Settlers in the American west also had a problem faced by many people in the world today. So it was hard to keep animals away from crops. There were no fences on the Great Plains. They leaked and became muddy when it rained. Others built houses from blocks of earth cut out of the grassland. Without trees, settlers had no wood to build houses. The wide flat grasslands seemed strange to men who had lived among the hills and forests of the east. Building a farm there and working it was not so easy. STEVE EMBER: Claiming land on the Great Plains was easy. He paid just ten dollars to record the deal. If he built a home on the land, and farmed it for five years, it would be his. The law said each man could have sixty-five hectares. This law gave every citizen, and every foreigner who asked for citizenship, the right to claim government land. In eighteen sixty-two, Congress had passed the Homestead Act. Others came from other countries and hoped to build new lives in the United States.Īll the settlers found it easy to get land in the West. They did not have enough money to buy farmland in the east. Some simply hoped to buy any kind of farmland. The soil they left behind was thin and overworked. LARRY WEST: After the Indians were defeated, thousands of settlers hurried west. This week in our series, Larry West and Steve Ember tell about the people who settled on the old Indian lands after the wars. It forced the Indians to live on government-controlled reservations. It fought, and won, several wars with Indian tribes. The federal government supported the settlers' claims. The Indians were hunters, and they struggled to keep control of their hunting lands.
They claimed land traditionally used by American Indians.
In the late eighteen hundreds, white Americans expanded their settlements in the western part of the country. SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION - American history in VOA Special English.
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