Greece, once so great, is shockingly ruined by soil wash. In parts of Europe people even pound stone to get a little bit of loose material in which plant roots can work.[1]
In our own South millions of acres are already ruined,[2] and the same destructive agency has caused ruin and abandonment of land in Ohio, Illinois, Indiana—indeed, in every one of our states. The total of this destruction has been estimated at 16,600 square miles, equal to the cultivated area of England.[3] And yet, as human history goes, we came to America only yesterday.
If we think of ourselves as a race, a nation, a people that is to occupy its country generation after generation, we must change some of our habits or we shall inevitably experience the steadily diminishing possibility of support for man.
FLAT LAND AGRICULTURE GOES TO THE HILLS
How does it happen that the hill lands have been so frightfully destroyed by agriculture? The answer is simple. Man has carried to the hills the agriculture of the flat plain. In hilly places man has planted crops that need the plow; and when a
- ↑ Von Schierbrand, Wolf. Austria Hungary. Chap. XIV.
- ↑ "Land too poor for crops or grazing, such as old abandoned fields, of which Brazos County (Texas) alone has thousands of acres." H. Ness, Botanist. Texas Experimental Station, Journal of Heredity, 1927, "In many sections of Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, and other corn belt states water erosion has a tendency to form deep, steep-sided ravines which will sometimes make farming almost impossible in a field as large as twenty or forty acres." Letter, Ivan D. Wood, State Extension Agent, Agricultural Engineering, University of Nebraska, July 19, 1923.
- ↑ National Conservation Congress. See also "Soil Erosion: A National Menace." H. H. Bennett, U. S. Dept. Agr. Circular, No. 33, 1928. This is a document of great value.
tree and Apina Christi. Yet seven monasteries once stood on this now desolate tract, three of them still to be identified by their ruins. Until we reach the edge of the Jordan, only the stunted bushes I have mentioned, unworthy of the name of trees, and a few shrubs with dwarfed leaves are to be seen after leaving the moisture of Sultan's Spring. Not a blade of grass softens the dull yellow prospect around." Quoted from Gila River Flood Control, p. 18. Secretary of the Interior, 1919.
