US Presidency
1910

To this end the conservation of the soils of the country should be cared for with all means at the Government's disposal. Their productive powers should have the attention of our scientists that we may conserve the new soils, improve the old soils, drain wet soils, ditch swamp soils, levee river overflow soils, grow trees on thin soils, pasture hillside soils, rotate crops on all soils, discover methods for cropping dry-land soils, find grasses and legumes for all soils, feed grains and mill feeds on the farms where they originate, that the soils from which they come may be enriched. A work of the utmost importance to inform and instruct the public on this chief branch of the conservation of our resources is being carried on successfully in the Department of Agriculture; but it ought not to escape public attention that State action in addition to that of the Department of Agriculture ( as for instance in the drainage of swamp lands ) is essential to the best treatment of the soils in the manner above indicated.