The Year the Fish Died

AGRICULTURE The Year the FIsh Died Accompanied by Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson, Interior Secretary Fred Seaton and a retinue of aides and specialists, President Eisenhower was off this week on his flying threeday, six-state inspection tour of drought-stricken areas beyond the Mississippi. What he would find was nicely summed up by Texas Rancher Stanley Walker, longtime (1928-35) city editor of the New York Herald Tribune, in a byliner for his old newspaper. Wrote Walker of the drought belt's 1956: "It was the year the windmills pumped air, the fish died in the dusty ponds, the jack rabbits nibbled prickly pear, the baby quail fell into the cracks in the earth, the termites ate the onions, the bankers forgot how to laugh and the rattlesnakes crawled into the living room."

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