The frontiersman., 1955-09-08
SOILS OF THE MkTANUSKA VALLEY
By Charles w. Wilson

In these days or urOutn dIlo dust in the southwest, tornadoes A to E along the Atlantic coast and disastrous floods in Pen- nsylvania, New York, and New England, we in the Matanuska Valley come to the beginning of Fair Week with a feeling that we are living in very beautiful and bountiful valley.
 We who have chosen soils as our principal field, how to use 1t, and how to protect it, have found working with Alaska soils and particularly with the soils of the Matanuska Valley a very satls' flying calling.
 We are getting the satisfaction of working with new material rather than something old, ab- used and worn out. As with all new things, we must know some thing about how they were made and what use can be made ot them without injury or destruc- ton before we can safely use them.
 We see evidence at every hand to give us proof, if proof is need ed, that the Matanuska Valley was out by ice from the many gaciers and back filled by gravel, boulders, and silt from the noun tain area above carried by the glacial ice. Over this has been deposited the silt now at or near the surface. Sorting and separat- ing is the result of winds which seem to be ever present or near.
 Lake George has added it's an- nual deposits to the lower valley and within a few days the wind was bringing these deposits up the valley to Palmer, for you see the Matanuska Valley is still un- der construction.
 Wind and water have made the valley out of remains of glaciers. Nature has helped by covering the scars with weeds, grass, will lows, and forests almost to the very face of the ice. Nature and the elements have worked for us but the laws of nature are inflex- ible. They react to conditions and can destroy our valley through the same forces that made it-- wind and water. Plants and their dead ancestors (humus) are help ful building forces. Without plants and organic litter of the grasslands and forests, wind and water are extremely destructive here in Alaska just as in the great plains of the southwest and the stor1n-ravished northeast
 Stabilization of the soils of the Matanuska Valley is a problem which cannot safely be ignored. It is a point of pride we have to know that there is a much more widespread realization of the problem by our people than is common in most soil-problem areas of the United States. To. solve problem is first to recog- nize that a problem exists.
 A few simple rules if followed will go a long way toward main ing the stability of Matanuska Valley soils: avoid fall cultivation maintain high organic content in the soil by turning under all crop residue, including grass crops in the rotation, and occasionally blow or disc under a green man. ure crop. Grain and oat-pea sill age should be cut with high stub ble left to hold and soil through the winter. Tn extreme hazard areas the only real solution is to maintain a grass cover at all times.
 We feel sorry for the dust bowl people because they have mistreated their land for 50 long a time it is hard for them to quit. We haven't yet gotten into that bad habit.
 The technicians of the Soil Conservation Service, cooperat- ing with the Alaska Soil Conser- vation District, are available to assist valley farmers in solving soil stability problems, as we'll as irrigation and drainage problems.