The Canadian prairie dryland disaster and the reshaping of ‘expert’ farm wisdom

The settlement of the Canadian prairie dry belt was accompanied by ‘expert’ claims that ‘proper’ farming in the dubious region would invariably produce crops. As the region sank into the abyss between 1917 and 1926, settler experience revealed the falsity of several aspects of the expert message regarding summer fallowing, mixed farming, fall rye, deep plowing, and even the necessity of summer rain. In the end, largely the tillers themselves devised a new system of dry farming, though significantly for the heart of the dry belt no abiding dry farming solutions were ever found.