Severe drought conditions, combined with the great depression of the 1930s, drove thousands of farmers and small ranchers out of business. Most of them had bank loans which were taken to cover costs of planting their crops and, when the rain failed to come, the land dried up and their crops died. This left them with no income to repay the loans, so the banks foreclosed.

Many of the farmers stayed on the land as share croppers, splitting the income from their efforts 50/50 with the banks. But this too failed as the drought persisted and the winds came and blew the topsoil away, in giant clouds, so there was no income to share.

Most of the farmers, facing starvation, as in John Steinbeck's novel "Grapes of Wrath", took to the roads to find employment picking fruit in California. Many of the farming implements, such as this tractor, were abandoned and still clutter rural areas of the Midwestern and southern United States.

THE OLD RUSTY TRACTOR

How many waving fields of wheat,
how many fields of hay
did this old tractor help produce
way back in yesterday?

It was a beauty to behold,
it's paint was polished and clean.
It was the farmer's pride and joy,
his favorite machine.

He hit the floor at break of dawn
to greet the morning sun,
and worked until the sun had set
to get his day's work done.

He plowed and planted
as he prayed for a rainy day
to settle the dust and germinate
the seeds to make his hay.

Through good times and bad,
for who knows how many years,
the farmer and the tractor worked
with smiles and sometimes tears.

Then came the great depression,
the bank took the farmer's land
and left it standing fallow,
dead grass and blowing sand.

The farmer packed his family up
and headed toward the west
to feed and clothe his family
he had to do his best.

The tractor was abandoned
and left to rust away.
The product of neglect and time
is what we see today.

It sits in rust and ruin now,
ignored by everyone.
Technology has passed it by;
it's useful days are done.

Copyright 2007 by John Swift.