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<br />O~22ro::~ <br />u ,.J J <br /> <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br /> <br />were in great demand, and these machines supported dryland agri- <br />business retailing in every large and small town on the Plains. <br />Often they were only parts of larger wholesale and retail enterprises, <br />selling hardware, lumber and cement for new farmsteads, coal, <br />harness. feed and seed. Dryland farming was and remains in need of <br />ever newer and better tools, This South Plains area was uniquely <br />well-suited for farming, much more so than for ranching, and the <br />small-farm economy of the time was the primary factor in the <br />prosperity of the small town. <br />Economic, Social and Demographic Setting <br />General business and economic activities off the farm, the <br />social development of the region, and the population trends in the <br />Texas South Plains were not unlike those experienced throughout <br />mid-continent America in the first half of the 20th century. The <br />same rural boom-and-bust periods, the same weather problems, the <br />same over-population as a result of political orograms bent <br />upon settling the interior heartlands with small farmers <br />on no more than 160 acres per farm, and the same bittersweet life- <br />styles of early Great Plains settlement - all of these were <br />experienced in the South Plains. <br />The principal non-agricultural business development in the <br />South Plains came with the discovery of some outstanding oil and <br />gas fields. Had this not occurred, the area would doubtless have <br />continued to lag behind the rest of the High Plains because of its <br />generally less hospitable climate. As it was, all nine of the case <br /> <br />IV-ll <br /> <br />Anhur D Liule.lnc <br />