Carolina watchman. [volume] (Salisbury, N.C.) 1871-1937, 1931-10-15
ROWAN
FARM
GLEANINGS
By w. G. YEAGER
County Agent

la oeA oSIlSollulS 10 1lOl 1lOIll l1l(
low price of our farm crops but from
the loss of our farming capital, the
soil itself, a loss that cannot be repair
ed in several generations.
Mr.. H. H. Bennett, Soil expert for
the U. S. Bureau of Soils has made
some observations along this line that
are worth passing on TO our readers
as follows:
Land improverishment and land
destruction by excessive erosion have
come to be recognized as an agricul-
trail problem of sinister and wide
spread Importance. The agricultural
authorities of a large number of states
have recently declared hat this form
of wastage is the most serious problem
confronting the users of land.
Erosion has modified the surface
of the earth more than the COM
bined activities of volcanoes, earth
quakes, tidal waves, tornadoes, and
all the excavations of mankind since
the beginning of history. But little
effort is required by thinking peo-
pie, seeing clearly through their
own eyes, to satisfy themselves that
here is a force whose destructive
ness exceeds all possibility of hu-
man comprehension.
Take the region of the Piedmont
plateau, extending from Alabama to
New York city comprising CO.
100000 acres of land: Surveys indi-
cate that IS per cent of all the land
that has ever been cultivated within
it has lost from fcor to Is inches
of its soil and subsoil. The original
depths of the regional topland soil
was about four to eight inches. A
soil survey of a South Carolina pied
mont county shows hat $4,000
acres, or SO percent of the total
area of the county, has lost its sur
face soil since the clearing of the
land.
When this layer is gone, the far
rner's principal capital is gone The
material below is TOO poor in count
less instances for profitable produc-
ton, even when prices are good. We
cannot build it back after it is gone.
1t takes nature not less than 400
years to build one single inch of the
priceless topsoil of some of our i'm
portant types of farm land as for
example the Shelby loan of Mis-
souri, and Iowa, an important type
of corn belt soil. This we have
learned by separately measuring tho
rate of soil losses under continuous
corn and under continuous grass.
recognizing hat soil under a GOOD
sod of grass closely approximate
the condition under which nature
builds soil. 1t takes just seven
years under continuous corn If
northern Missouri for one inch Of
the Shelby loan to wash off lane
having a sloap Of about four feet in
a hundred and only one year to re-
move the same depth from land slop-
ing eight feet in a hundred.
In other words, on that soil, which
originally produced in good years Is
bushels of corn per acre, man now Is
wasting in from one t seven year,
what nature took not less than 400
years to build. The average depth OF
the soil on the average slope of the
region is about seven inches, and the
clay below, which is reached by eros
ion proceeding under the present sys-
tenn of farming in from sever to forty
nine years, produces in a good veal
and nothing in the poor crop years.
only about 20 bushels of corn per acre
Subsoil farming is a degraded type
of farming. The land itself is degrad-
ed. The poverty | have seen on these
lands stripped of their fecund topsoi]
is depressing beyond description. pow
erty is sometimes seen on good land
but it is only exceptionally. l am re-
ferring to conditions that existeo
prior to this present ecomic depress-
ion, such, of course, as can but in
tensify the situation.
Our soil is our most priceless as
set, and is likely to continue to be-
Marvellous as has been the discov-
cries of chemistry, there yet remain:
to be manufactured upon a purely
synthetic basis one single major fooc
product. 1t is unsafe to make predic-
lions relating to future discoveries
but all evidence points to the pro-
liability of the soil continuing to BE-
the primary source of the principa
food and raiment of mankind. W.
must have determined leadership, de-
termined workers and without delay
far-reaching, practical national, state
county, community and individual
programs and cooperation. Much poor
land must go back to timber or per-
manent pasture. If these things are not
done it is not going to be long unit
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