Evening star., 1937-07-18
BY PAUL B. SEARS.
greatest agricultural college
in the world has no faculty,
and it is older than history
4 II Is the tollnh coStlu SchocL of

in the world has no faculty,
and it is older than history.
1t is the tough, costly school OF
hardship. 1t publishes no bulletins.
Its lessons must be burned into the
fiber and folkWays of its graduates
Those who will not learn do not sur
vive to graduate.
And SO it happens that the great,
permanent advances in agricultural
practice almost up to today have
arisen where life was not easy. The
Indians OF our very dry Southwest
grow their dWarfed corn and beans
and feed themselves where we would
have trouble to hang on. The Egvp-
tians, for all their good luck in getting
tribute from the upper Nile had to
use their wits and skill. Life had to
be built about the river Engineers
after the flood. to impound water when
1t was high for use after the river had
receded. Planning and forethought
were the price Of staying alive.
For the price OF postal card any
one OF us can bring to our door a
stream of printed information about
the land and its use This information
is tested and technically correct. But
it Is, alas, precisely no good until it is
part OF the life Of those who live
upon the soil. And these, by the
million. are doing things as their
fathers taught them, under the COM
pulsion OF debts and taxes. love and
prejudice, ignorance and native wis
dom. Fat chance to tell a man to
buy fertilizer and terrace his farm
when he may not know where his seed
Is coming from! Bright prospect in
asking him to manage the land for his
grandchildren's sake when it belongs
to some one else. as is the case with
over so per cent OF the farm land in
the United States today.
Human Side Most Difficult.
These things being true, suppose we
leave the realm OF tables and formulate
and look at folks a while For the
most difficult part Of conservation is
not the technical. but the human side.
The rich black land of the lower
Mississippi is wonderful stuff. In the
words of an old Texan, 1T just
naturally seems to sprout big white
houses That is, it used to sprout
them, when cotton was king cash,
labor was cheap and happy and
owners lived on the ground. II man
has money in his pocket, what else does
he need? Certainly not the pastures
and woods which covered the thin
soiled hills above this black land.
Particularly not il these hills could
be plowed and put into 4O-cent cotton.
Not long ago supervisor of one OF
the Federal relief projects in a South
ern valley learned that most Of his
clients were the immediate descend
ants OF the once wealthy cotton
planters in the valley. And about
that time. in the course Of the exca-
vation which he was making. or rather
which they were making under his
direction, he found the answer Some
nine feet down from the present sur
race, under load OF sterile sand and
silt, lay the buried family treasure.
This treasure was none other than the
rich, deep, black soil that had in its
day sprouted mansions. The hands
that had buried it were not those Of
pirates but of its lawful owners who
had stripped the living cover from
the hills in their effort to better a
very good thing. And when the rains
descended, the hills, too came down.
Why was not something done before
1t was too late? All. there's story,
too. The city dweller, living in
crowded world, with comparisons
constantly before him, knows the
moment his shoes need a shine or his
automobile lacquer becomes dull and
faded. But the farmer may have the
soil shifted about under him and be
unaware OF the change. More than
once l have had men tell me that they
never knew their ground was washing
away or being buried by wash from
elsewhere until unaccountable crop
failures warned them that something
was wrong.
We pay millions annually for locks
bolts. policemen, armies and navies-
merely to protect our wealth. We do
not expect any direct return apart