Waiting for our land to turn moist and green again

There are times when a man looks to the sky, and the approaching thunder and lightning cause him to smile with joy.

For many Iowans, that time has come. The state suffered its driest August in history, the National Weather Service reports. The parched heat wilted soybeans and shriveled much of the corn west of Iowa City. Across the state, towns that draw their drinking water from rivers are watching to see if the flow decreases.

Some longtime farmers, peeling back the papery husks of their corn's thin ears, wonder if it's not time to give it up, to retire a few years early, or to search for a job in town, working a few more years than planned to make up the lost dollars.

• • •

Ironically, a good number of people came to Iowa because of drought.

In 1854, drought and an ensuing widespread cholera epidemic propelled many living in the Ohio Valley to head for Iowa. Promoters of our sparsely populated state promised a better and healthier place to live.

And so the newcomers came, many by boat down the Ohio River to the Mississippi, then upstream along Old Man River. The "port cities" - Keokuk, Burlington, Davenport, Muscatine and Dubuque - thrived from the human stream, most of which filtered inland to start new farms and towns.

• • •

Almost 15 decades later, much of that bountiful land yields dead corn stalks, which sport ears only because genetics and biotechnology have created breeds of early-maturing plants. If not for modern science, the cobs would be as curled as the dried ground at the stalks' roots.

But Mother Nature finds ways to express her cruelty. These past weeks, there have been rare thunderstorms in Iowa in which spurts of heavy rain left behind "sweet spots" of lush green sometimes just a mile away from a desiccated field.

In the past, such sweet spots would not have lasted long. Plagues of grasshoppers would have swept out of the west to devour the dead grains and feast on the green along the way.

• • •

Among the forgotten years when that occurred is the Drought of 1894. It was so devastating that any time historians write about it, they must use capital letters.

R.K. Bliss, speaking during a 1965 radio program, was 13 the year of that drought. Living in central Iowa, Bliss and his brother drove their head of cattle 25 and 29 miles across Iowa that summer in search of feed and water.

"I worked steadily all spring, summer and fall pumping water, hauling water, dipping water out of wells for livestock, and helping to save all possible feed for the winter," Bliss said. "We cut no hay, had to depend on corn fodder.

"It was a year of difficult problems, which ... were as important to me and my education as any subsequent year in college or university."

Two decades after that drought, Bliss became the Iowa Cooperative Extension Service's first director. He served from 1914 to 1946, a key figure in transforming the state's farming economy through the use of hybrid corn, conservation and other new ideas.

• • •

In the cities these past few weeks, most of our lawns have browned and yellowed. It's a mixed blessing: Unsightly front yards, but we can leave the lawn mowers in the tool shed.

Across much of the Great Plains this year, some farmers won't bother to move their combines. There's nothing to harvest.

Farmers suffering the worst say they're not dwell-ing on the loss. There's nothing they can do about a drought. They must simply remain determined to go on as long as they can.

• • •

Of course, when most hear "drought," what comes to mind is the Dust Bowl, when clouds of black whirl-ed upon the horizon, bearing dark hopelessness. In Iowa, the worse of it stretched from 1934 to 1936, destroying both crops and livestock. A long and severe winter - a cold drought of dry air - killed even more cattle and shortened the growing season in 1936.

That last summer was "the year we got 'dried out,'" said Amanda Koester Lamp, who grew up near Aspin-wall.

"We had 200 acres of corn ... which my two brothers and I picked by ourselves," Lamp said. "The crop that year was so poor that we could work all morning and not fill the bottom of the wagon."

• • •

Any given year, drought, flood, hail, wind, insects, fungus and a host of other natural disasters can destroy a crop. With it, though, go human lives - not just a few families out on the prairie but whole towns that depend upon the surrounding farms to support their livelihoods.

This autumn through next spring, there will be more auctions of farm equipment than usual as the latest drought ends many dreams. Some will say it's just an acceleration of rural America's inevitable decline.

I like to think, though, not of the end a drought can bring but of those years after 1894 when the land turned moist and green again. It's a good image to keep in one's head whenever faced with adversity.

Certainly, it must be the vision of those farmers who are determined to go on as long as they can.

(originally published Sept. 14, 2003)