CONSERVATION: Bowl Dusted

A natural scourge unknown to the East and West is the high wind that sweeps over the Southwest plains in early spring.

In dry years it makes powdery earth rise as from a beaten rug. In 1935 its driving fury made the Dust Bowl a national problem. Not since then has the high wind blown as it blew last week.

Over 100,000 square-miles in Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, gales raged up to 40, 50, even 80 m.p.h. Relatively moist and verdant this year in its south west section, protected by terracing and furrow farming, the Bowl got nothing like its 1935 dusting. But farmers sneezed and grew red-eyed, Oklahoma City motorists needed headlights at midday, in some parts of Oklahoma visibility shrank to 100 feet.

Crop damage, mainly the uprooting of dry young wheat in western Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle, was estimated at $1,000,000.