Page:Tree Crops; A Permanent Agriculture (1929).pdf/26

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of gullies and a kingdom of good land ruined and abandoned.^[1]

Field wash, especially in America, is the greatest of all

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PROFILE OF SOIL AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ITS MANAGEMENT

University of Illinois bulletin states that "mangum terrace is best adapted to types of soil slope where sheet washing carries away vast amounts of soil fertility each season."

I challenge the Illinois statement that slopes up to 3 per cent, are safe for (from) farming. I do not believe it is proved, and I do not believe it is true in Illinois. See "Is America a Permanent Country like Europe?" by Arthur II. Mason of Homewood, Illinois.

↑ "Five years ago there was not a gully on the place. . . now it is badly cut by gullies . . . all the top soil washed away, leaving nothing but the clay. . . . If not terraced . . . the gullies |will| cut deeper until the rocks are touched or until all the clay soil is gone. . . . Five years ago it could have been saved by spending less than three dollars an acre to have it terraced. To-day it will cost five times as much in addition to getting nothing from it for at least two years."—Oklahoma Extension News, January, 1928.

For decades reports of ruin have come out of the hill section of the American cotton belt—thousands of square miles of ruin. Some counties were reported one-third worn out before 1850. Worst of all is the plight of the loess lands east of the Mississippi. This layer of rich, wind-blown soil, half as wide as the State of Mississippi, reaching nearly all the way

[p6-1] "Five years ago there was not a gully on the place. . . now it is badly cut by gullies . . . all the top soil washed away, leaving nothing but the clay. . . . If not terraced . . . the gullies |will| cut deeper until the rocks are touched or until all the clay soil is gone. . . . Five years ago it could have been saved by spending less than three dollars an acre to have it terraced. To-day it will cost five times as much in addition to getting nothing from it for at least two years."—Oklahoma Extension News, January, 1928.

For decades reports of ruin have come out of the hill section of the American cotton belt—thousands of square miles of ruin. Some counties were reported one-third worn out before 1850. Worst of all is the plight of the loess lands east of the Mississippi. This layer of rich, wind-blown soil, half as wide as the State of Mississippi, reaching nearly all the way

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