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Carson Vaughan

Shelterbelt

Trees that helped save America’s farms during the Dust Bowl are now under threat

Environment

The Great Plains were the nation’s breadbasket, but drought in the 1930s created the Dust Bowl. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s solution was to plant trees as a shelterbelt to help hold back the dust. The plan worked, but now some farmers, forced by economic necessity to maximize crop yields, are cutting them down.

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