In the 19th century, as pioneers ventured westward in the United States, an interesting belief emerged which became known as “Rain Follows the Plow.” This theory asserted that just by settling in an arid region people could influence the climate and cause an increase in rainfall, making desert areas more hospitable.
This wasn’t just some old wives’ tale though, plenty of experts came up with theories to back it up. Sadly, they were all wrong, their theories were based on coincidental observations and a rudimentary understanding of meteorology.
Even worse, thousands of people listened to them and ventured out into the Great Plains to make names for themselves as homesteaders and pioneers. Suffice it to say, rain doesn’t follow the plow. Here’s why.
Explaining the Theory
People are forever coming up with sayings that sound smart but are ultimately wrong. “Rain Follows the Plow” is an attempt to sum up a theory written by Charles Dana Wilber, an American land speculator and journalist who was active in the late nineteenth century. Note for later that his resume didn’t include agriculture or climatology.
Wilber believed that over time America’s Great Plains would turn from arid desert to a garden of plenty with the help of farmers. Basing his ideology on the work of early American climatologists, especially Cyrus Thomas and his Hayden Survey of 1871, Wilber wrote:
“God speed the plow. … By this wonderful provision, which is only man’s mastery over nature, the clouds are dispensing copious rains … [the plow] is the instrument which separates civilization from savagery, and converts a desert into a farm or garden. … To be more concise, Rain follows the plow”
Basically, Wilber (and others) believed that human habitation and agriculture could lead to a permanent change in the climate of desert and semi-desert areas by making them more humid. The idea was that human settlement and the cultivation of soil led to increased rainfall which in turn made the land more fertile and lusher. The more people cultivating the land, the quicker the process.
The theory became popular during the 1870s and was used to justify the moving of people to the Great Plains, long known as the Great American Desert. People were understandably dubious about moving to the arid region, but this saying did a lot to assuage their fears. It was also backed up by a decent amount of “evidence.”
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Or at least that was how it appeared. “Rain Follows the Plow” caught on so quickly because plenty of people seemed to be seeing evidence of it in action.
In the 1860s and 1870s American settlements began expanding westwards of the Missouri River and into areas traditionally considered arid. Soon, white settlers who had moved into central and western Nebraska and emigrants on the Oregon Trail began to report that the land, usually thought to be yellowed and dry, was becoming increasingly green.
Some American scientists jumped to the conclusion that the increased rain that was causing this greenery was down to the new settlers cultivating the land. Soon, experts were visiting the affected regions in an attempt to explain what was happening.
In 1871 Cyrus Thomas, working for the United States Geological Survey, studied the recent history of Colorado and decided that the increased rainfall and humidity in the region was permanent and was caused by land cultivation. Soon other experts like famed geographer Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden, Samuel Aughey of the University of Nebraska, and our friend Wilber were joining the cause.
There were a number of theories that attempted to explain in more detail what was occurring but two stood out as being particularly popular. The most common was the idea that plowing the soil exposed its moisture to the sky (even though the soil was supposedly arid prior to plowing).
It was also believed that newly planted trees, shrubs, and plants also released moisture into the air. Even smoke from trains and the metal of telegraph wires was said to have an effect.
The second popular, and slightly more absurd, idea was that the moisture was caused by vibrations. It was said that increased human activity led to more vibrations in the atmosphere which led to more clouds being formed. This particular disease led to farmers dynamiting the air across the Great Plains in the 1870s in an attempt to drum up even more clouds.
Manifest Destiny
The strange theories did seem to be backed by evidence, the once arid regions had become increasingly humid, and it did seem to coincide with the human settlements being built there. There’s no denying that. However, there was another driving force behind the spread of “Rain Follows the Plow”: human greed and ambition.
A lot of people had a lot to gain from encouraging others to move into the Great Plains. Alongside scientists, many land speculators (like Wilber) and emigrants embraced the theory. Some historians believe its spread can be directly tied to the American ideal of Manifest Destiny, the idea that the US had a duty to expand and spread democracy and freedom across the Americas.
Politicians like William Gilpin, Colorado’s first governor, and Abraham Lincoln’s aide, pushed the idea of Manifest Destiny and used the Rain Follows the Plow theory to encourage people to move west. Of course, these land speculators and politicians weren’t doing this out of the goodness of their hearts.
The settlement of the West brought them land, money, and power. Even the railroads, hardly famed for their ethics, got in on the act. Trying to attract settlers to their land grants, they added the idea that settlement increased rainfall into their slogans.
The Santa Fe Railroad had a pamphlet that depicted a Kansas farmer and his plow, its slogan read: “Who Killed the Great American Desert.” Likewise, whenever Professor Aughey, a major proponent of the theory gave a speech, the railroads were nearby, copying down his speeches and distributing them to potential emigrants in America and even Europe.
The Grand Mistake
Sadly, the proponents of “Rain Follows the Plow” were all wrong, their reasoning deeply flawed. When massive droughts returned to the Great Plains in the 1890s it was the homesteaders, they had encouraged to move there who suffered the most. Some of the so-called experts had the gall to claim the drought was the homesteaders’ fault, they hadn’t plowed deep enough to release moisture.
There was one big flaw with the theory, which was that it was based on faulty evidence. Climates fluctuate all the time and the period during which people came up with the theory was unusually damp. It just so happened to coincide with the region’s settlement. In other words, it was a coincidence, a classic example of people confusing correlation and causation.
This isn’t to say human activity doesn’t impact the climate. We’re learning that lesson all the time. Modern climatologists do recognize that increased urbanization and vegetation can lead to more precipitation.
It’s just that the effects are highly localized in scope, and increased rainfall in one part of a region leads to less rainfall in nearby areas. A few farms moving into an area as large as the Great Plains can’t cause permanent climatological change for the entire region.
And so we came to recognize that the “Rain Follows the Plow” theory, born during 19th-century westward expansion in the United States, falsely asserted that human cultivation attracted increased rainfall. Despite anecdotal observations supporting this notion, it lacked a scientific foundation. The belief emerged from settlers attributing rainfall coincidences to their agricultural activities, promoting the idea that plowing influenced climate.
However, these observations were misconstrued due to a limited understanding of meteorology at the time. The theory was then rushed out by those who had the most to gain.
“Rain Follows the Plow” was a half-baked theory backed by greed that ultimately stands as a historical misconception. It highlights the dangers of drawing climate-related conclusions without rigorous scientific scrutiny and understanding. This is a lesson more important today than ever before.
Top Image: There did seem to be evidence for “rain follow the plow” during the Us expansion westwards. But this was highly localized due to the sparse population, and everyone had missed the bigger picture. Source: Fottoo / Adobe Stock.
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