Saving Georgia soils

SAVING GEORGIA SOILS
Prepared b)' the t'nited States Department of Agriculture, Soil Conservation Service,
for the
GEORGIA PROGRANI FOR THE IMPROVEl'v1ENT OF INSTRUCTION
'j
IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

M. E. Thompson Director
.1 ;:

Paul R. Morrow Director of Research

Celia C. McCall Assistant Director of Research

State Department of Education M. D. COLLINS
State Superintendent of Schools Atlanta, Georgia

FOREWORD
This bulletin is published in co-operation with the Soil Conservation Service of the United States Department of Agriculture, and was prepared by C. L. Veatch, Ralph Fulghum, Barrington King and others of the Service in an attempt to tell about Georgia's soil resources and present simply the soil conservation problem this generation faces.
Practical study suggestions and a few references are given at the end of each chapter. The enterprising student may want to write for some of the reference bulletins immediately. It is also suggested that the State Agricultural Extension Service at Athens, the Georgia Experiment Station at Griffin, the Coastal Plains Experiment Station at Tifton, and the State Department of Natural Resources at Atlanta, be written for a list of available bulletins so that the ones desired as references can be obtained.
Helpful, up-to-date references can be found in Soil Conservation, the magazine published by the Soil Conservation Service of the United States Department of Agriculture. Subscription is one dollar a year, from the Superintendent of Documents, \Vashington, D. C.
M. D. Collins, State Superintendent of Schools S. V. Sanford, Chancellor, the University System of Georgia

CHAPTER

CONTENTS

PAGE

1. THE COUNTRY OGLETHORPE FOUND - - - - - - - - - 5
Trees Blanketed the Hills - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 5 Soils Rich - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 5 Making Way for the Plow_________________________ 7
Bared Slopes Wash Away - - - - - - - - - - - -- - --- -- -- - --- 7 Suggested Study and References___________________ 8

II. FORMATION OF THE SOIL

--------------- 9

Formed in Layers - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 9

Many Kinds of Soils__ _

10

Suggested Study and References ___________________ 13

III. THE SOUTH DEPENDS ON AGRICULTURL____ 15 Georgia Two-Thirds RuraL _______________________ 15 King Cotton Has Ruled_ __________________________ 16
Suggested 'Study and References ___________________ 18

IV. TYPES OF EROSION_____________________________ 19

Gully Erosion __ . _____ ___________________________ 19

Sheet Erosion____________________________________ 21

Dust Storms_ _________ ___________________________ 22

Stream Bank Erosion

22

Suggested Study and References

23

V. RESULTS OF EROSION

24

Effects on Agriculture_ ______________ _____________ 24

Effects on Industry

._ __ 25

Floods

27

Suggested Study and References

28

VI. WHAT HAS HAPPENED IN OTHER COUNTRIES? _ __ __ _______________ _________________ _________ 29

The Soil Destroyed

29

Can This Tragedy Happen to Our Country? - - - __ - - - _ 30

Suggested Study and References - - - - - - _____________ 30

VII. DEVELOPMFST OF EROSION CONTROL

31

Concerted Drive Against Erosion_ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 33

Suggested Study and References

35

3

VIII.

CHAPTER
WISE LAND USE Vegetate Steep Slopes - - - - - - - - _- _Use Croplands Wisely Lands Held in Trusteeship Suggested Study and References

PAGE
36 - 36
38 38 39

IX. BACK TO VEGETATION_________________

40

How Forests Protect the Land

40

Grass Holds Soil and WateL

42

Small Grains and Legume Crops - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 43

Suggested Study and References - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 44

X. MECHANICAL EROSION CONTROL

45

Terracing_______________________________________ 45

Vegetated Waterways

- 46

Contour Tillage - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 47

Suggested Study and References

48

XI. VEGETATIVE EROSION CONTROL - - - - - - - - - - - - - 49

Crop Rotations - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 49

Perennial Strip Cropping

- ------- -- 5I

Pasture Improvement-

- _- - - - - - - 5 I

Suggested Study and References - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 53

XII. MODERN PIONEERS

54

A Different Frontier - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 55

Suggested Study and References

56

4

CHAPTER I
THE COUNTRY OGLETHORPE FOUND
When Oglethorpe landed near where Savannah now stands in 1733 our Georgia lands must indeed have looked very beautiful to those eager colonists. An early writer described the bluffs where they pitched their tents as "a veritable Eden covered with wide-spreading live oaks, while lofty forests of pine loomed beyond the river."
Trees Blanketed the Hills
It was a panorama of loveliness-ocean and wide-spreading rivers on the eastern seaboard; forested plains and rolling land in the southern part, while to the north, farther than the eye could see, extended treecovered hills, mountains and valleys. Trees, trees everywhere is the impression that one' would have gotten had he been a member of the crew of 130 adventurers who landed with Oglethorpe on the banks of the Savannah River over 200 years ago.
In this primeval forest streams ran clear except in floods when channel and bank erosion furnished the major burden of silt. These streams were fed a constant supply of clear, cdd water from numerous bubbling springs. Here and there nestled crystal lakes to mirror the overhanging trees in the daytime or reflect the light of the moon and stars at night. Numerous varieties of shrubs and wild flowers in profusion added zest and beauty to the view at all seasons of the year.
These great forests were alive with animal life and their waters teemed with fish. In his description of Georgia, Van Reck, leader of the Salzburgers, tells of roebuck, wild goats, stags, hares and large herds of buffaloes seen on a trip inland.
The Georgia Bicentennial Handbook jor Teachers, a bulletin of the State Department of Education, lists the principal game birds at that time as wild pigeons, ducks, doves, turkeys, and partridges. This same booklet states further that it is difficult to realize the vast amount of game this state furnished to its early settlers; it was almost their sole sustenance. (Imagine, if you will, the modern Boy Scout troop pitching its tents in such a veritable fish and game paradise!)
Soils Rich
Of course the soils were rich! For countless ages they had been forming under ideal conditions. The forests put a roof above the soil,
5

covered it with a protecting carpet of leaves and other decaying vegetation and tied it into place with grasping roots. Rain fell gent! beneath those trees. The rain found myriad ob tructions on the fore t floor
A CL R TREA
'Vilen (rees and grass blanketed the hills streams were dear aod sparkling.
which wa thick with fallen leaves and twig. For centurie ,leaves, twigs and roots had been decaying and forming a part of the oil to make it rich and porou .
6

Such was the country Oglethorpe found when he embarked upon that history-making adventure-limitless virgin forests stretching out like a king's park; clear streams, crystal lakes and bubbling springs; game and fish in abundance to provide sustenance, and millions of acres of virgin soil, plenteous in the accumulated fertility of centuries, awaiting the plow. Indeed, "God had touched and sealed with His hand" and given to future Georgians to have and to hold forever for their comfort, inspiration and recreation a land of promise and a panorama of loveliness.
Making Way for the Plow
But the eager colonists had no time to revel in the beauty of the landscape. The forest to them was a wilderness to conquer. Being tillers of the soil, they were not satisfied to hunt and fish for a livelihood, but looked to the soil to furnish them with the comforts and necessities of life. .
These early settlers sought to build Georgia's economic foundation of silk, but this failed and the pioneers turned to the growing of rice. This crop was planted in the marshes and along the rivers.
Other settlers came and pushed out northward along the Savannah River. The introduction of slaves, which were at first banned by the new colony, and the invention of the cotton gin opened up new fields of endeavor. Cotton was destined to become "King!"
The settlers couldn't grow cotton and other crops among trees, so they cut the trees down. They plowed up the grass and protective cover that blanketed the soil. If land "wore out" there was new land to clear farther west. This early belief in the limitless expanse and resources of the newly found continent has persisted too long; it has played a villainous role in the wasteful practices of land use which now have become a recognized menace to continued national welfare.
The agricultural occupation of the land is now completed. All of the good lands of Georgia and of the nation are occupied. The frontier of new land was pushed westward, ever westward, until it reached the Pacific. But out of the two centuries of exploitation has arisen a new frontier to challenge a new generation-the frontier of Conservation.
Bared Slopes Wash Away
Significant changes in the rate of erosion have followed the clearing away of vegetation and the breaking of the soil with plows. Soils which had been thoroughly protected through thousands of years by unbroken mantles of vegetation, and had for this reason been weathered to fine textures, high organic content and good fertility, were suddenly
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exposed to the dash of torrential rains. There began under these conditions a rate of erosion which was accelerated far above the rates that hitherto obtained. Topsoils have been literally washed away, leaving raw, comparatively unprotected and unabsorptive subsoil exposed at the surface.
The red old hills oj Georgia, glorified in song and story, are not things oj which we should jeel proud; but rather do they stand as grim reminders oj the misuse and abuse we have accorded our soils. They have not always been red, but have become so only since the rich layer of darkcolored topsoil has washed away.
Although Georgia is perhaps no worse off than other southern states, the amount of land that has been washed away and ruined is startling. A recent survey of the erosion conditions over the state indicates that more than half of the land is badly affected by soil erosion. It shows that 232,000 acres in this state have been completely destroyed for agricultural purposes by gullies and that all of the topsoil has been washed from a far larger acreage.
The loss of an inch of topsoil to the average person does not mean much, yet it represents a vast quantity of soil when spread out over 20 million acres. Let us assume that this amount of land in Georgia ha~ been affected by erosion. Assuming that a freight car holds 40 tons, if one inch of soil from such an area were loaded into freight cars and these cars hooked end to end, they would reach around the earth nearly 23 times. This is a lot of soil, yet it represents only a fraction of the total amount which has been washed from the farms of Georgia and deposited in streams and reservoirs, or washed into the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean.
Suggested Study and References
Did our forefathers as they moved westward develop or begin to destroy the country? The Georgia Bicentennial Handbookjor Teachers and almost any good Georgia history book will be helpful in further study of both sides of this question.
Georgia Bicentennial Handbookjor Teachers, (1933) State Department of Education, Atlanta, Ga.
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CHAPTER II
FORMATION OF THE SOIL
How long has nature been forming that soil? The answer to this question is a long story. Scientists tell us that soil is derived from bare rock or other material through the processes of weathering which gradually broke down this parent material into what we know as soil. This is a slow geologic development, taking many, many thousands of years to build an inch of soil.
Formed in Layers
Soil scientists have adopted a very simple alphabet as a basis for describing virgin soils. The alphabet is A-B-C. "A" is for aerated or upper layer; "B" is for bound or subsoil layer, and "C" is for the underlying material from which the soil was formed. A fully developed, uneroded soil then has three layers or horizons, one below the other. Percolating water from rainfall assisted in developing these layers in the soil from the weathered parent material.
In your imagination, take a great knife-Paul Bunyan style-and with it cut downward through the forest soil and remove a slice like a great piece of cake. Lay the slice flat before you and examine the successive layers from the surface horizon to the lowest horizon. The surface or A layer will be loose or porous compared with the B layer, and interlaced with a mat of fine roots in the upper portion. The soil will be dark-colored downward for a distance of several inches. It is spongelike and will absorb water about as fast as water can be poured into it. If it were not for the roots and other organic matter, this surface layer would be readily washed away. Remove the roots and leaves and other organic matter, stir the surface soil and pour on water. The soil will crumble and slough down. You have done in miniature to the soils what cultivation of land has done to millions of acres in fields.
Examine the next lower layer or the B layer. It will contain more clay for it contains most of the clay which had leached into it from the upper A layer. It may be more compact and tough and sticky or more pliable than the A layer depending on the parent material from which it was formed. This second layer or B layer is what we call the subsoil. The depth, structure and texture of this layer largely determines the types of soil and much of its value as cropland.
Examine the lowest layer, or the C layer. In the coastal plains it will consist of sand or clay deposits from which the overlying soil layers have developed. In the Piedmont and mountain parts of the
9

state this layer will consist of partl y weathered, di integrated and decomposed rock.
TH ABC' OF THE OIL
Fran, the deep, fertile layer of virgin topsoil, corgia fnrmers produced bountiful crops, but they gave no tJlought to protecting this heritage of the ages against erosion. In many cases the topsoil and a portion of the subsoil have washed away. j\lany GeorgiaJarmcrs are now trying to make a living by subsoil farming.
Many Kinds of oil Although vlrglll soils develop into layers, they are by no mean
10

alike in physical or chemical composItIon, in crop adaptation or in erodibility (the ease with which they wash away). For this reason soil cientist have classified the oil into province, series and types, each classification having a set of condition or characteristic in common which affect crops in much the same way as climate aff~cts them.
o one would expect to grow oranges or bananas successfully in the mountains of north Georgia because of climatic limitations. ~either should the farmer attempt to grow crops on soil type just as unsuited to the particular crop a the climate of north Georgia is unsuited to orange trees. It is for this reason that soils are classified into provinces, or kindred groups, that are similar in such characteristics as the kind of material they were formed from and the method of formation.
Parts of five of the great soil provinces of the nited tates are repre ented in Georgia; namely, Limestone Valleys and Uplands; the Appalachian Mountains and Plateaus; the ?iedmont Plateau; the Coastal Plain, and the River Flood Plains. The areas of these divisions are shown on the accompanying map. A brief description of these areas is given below.: For more detailed information, the various county soil surveys should be consulted.
The Limestone Valleys and Uplands Pt"Ovince occurs in the northwestern part of the state, where the soils were developed from limestone, dolomite, sandstones and shales, and mixtures of these rocks. The topography or lay of the land consists of alternating ridges and mountains and broad valley. The surface drainage is good to excessive, while internal drainage in the low, flat sections is poor.
The Appalachian Mountains Pr'ovince is made up of high mountains and steep slopes, with comparatively narrow valleys. The soils are derived from granites, gneisses and chists. Drainage is good to excessive.
The Piedmont Plateau occupies the north central part of the tate and consists of rolling to omewhat hilly lands which range from sandy soils to clay loams. These are the "red hills of Georgia." The soils of this province were formed from granites, gneisses and schist. This section is well-drained, except in small areas of "flatwood ," and surface erosion is very acti ve.
The Coastal Plain section of the state lies south of a line running from Augusta through Milledgeville, Macon and Columbus, which is called the Fall Line. (This line wa once the seashore in the state.) This province has four distinctly different groups of soils, all of marine ongll1.
(I) The Fall Line Hills or Sandhill Belt occurs just below the Fall Line, which is the boundary between the Piedmont Plateau and Coastal Plain. It consists of a narrow, irreg-
11

ular belt of sandy soil of low fertility extending across the state from Augusta to Columbus and passing through Macon.
STATE
OF
GEORGIA
GEORGIA'S SOIL PROVINCES (2) The Upper Coastal Plain, lying below the Fall Line hills, is a
belt of red soils often referred to as the "red belt." This area extends in a northeastern, southwestward direction and is made up of red to brown surface soils with bright red, crumbly subsoils. (3) The Middle Coastal Plain is a broad area which lies south and
12

southeast of the Upper Coastal Plain, and has been designated as a gray, sandy loam section. Here the soils consist mainly of a gray, sandy sudace soil with bright yellow, sandy clay subsoils. The topogiaphy is level to gently rolling, and drainage is good except along streams and in lime sinks. (4) The Flatwoods Section is a belt parallel to the coast and has been given the name of Lower Coastal Plain. This section is flat and poorly drained. The River Flood Plains Province includes the bottom land soil of all sections. These soils are composed of sediment deposited by stream overflow. Each of the soil provinces includes a number of different groups of soils. These groups are called soil series, and all the soils in each series are similar in such characteristics as color, structure, drainage and derivation. In each series there are a number of soil types, such as sandy loams or clay loams. The soil series may be compared to the group of trees known as oaks, while generally speaking the soil types represent the different kinds of oaks. The Cecil Series, for example, is one of the major soils of the Piedmont Plateau. It has certain characteristics such as color, texture, etc., which are different from all other groups of soils lying within this prOVlllce. The Cecil Series is further divided into several types such as sandy loam, fine sandy loam and clay loam. Not only do the larger soil groups vary as to the kind of crops that can be successfully grown on them, but even the series and types differ as to crop adaptations, and as to their behavior under different methods of treatment. Each soil type then must be looked upon as representing a definite and distinct set of conditions that limits the growth of certain crops and favors the development of other crops, just as the climatic conditions prevent the growing of some crops and provide environments favorable to others. There are several hundred types of soil in Georgia, which permit the growing of a great variety of crops. Some of these are among the best in the country, and though erosion has damaged a large acreage, the soils of Georgia are the state's greatest and most essential resource.
Suggested Study and References
Study the different kinds of soil around the school. Dig down into the different layers, preferably with a soil auger, or study the layers on a bank where soil was removed to build a road. Duplicating some of these soils to scale by putting soil from each layer, one on top of the
13

other, in a large glass tube, or soil profile box with a glass side, would be interesting study.
Development and Significance oj the Great Soil Groups oj the United States.-u. S. Dept. Agri., Misc. Pub. 229.
Georgia Soils, Climate and Crops.-Univ. of Ga. Col. of Agri., Cir. 134*.
The Georgia Soil Survey.-Univ. of Ga. Col. of Agri., Bulletin 43*
*Out of print; copy in many libraries.
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CHAPTER III
THE SOUTH DEPENDS ON AGRICULTURE
The infinitely slow process of soil formation and the rapid devastation of the land when the soil is unprotected against erosion are matters of concern not alone to the individual farmer, or to the agricultural population, but to Georgia as a whole. The early rich plantation life and culture of the South, city and country, were the outgrowth of rich topsoil.
How significant these things are can be understood only when we realize that the entire economic structure of the state is built upon an agricultural foundation. Deterioration of the soil upon which this foundation is laid can result not only in collapse of agriculture but will result in a state-wide economic decline affecting all industries and the entire population.
: Georgia Two-Thirds Rural
The 1930 census reveals that more than two-thirds of the population of Georgia live on farms or in small communities and towns of less than 2,500 inhabitants. The other third of the people depend on agriculture, not only to produce the food they eat and the clothes they wear, but also for a large part of the purchasing power essential to the success of business and the permanence of jobs.
During the past 25 years it has taken an average of two and onethird acres of land to produce the food, clothing and other agricultural commodities needed by each person in the United States, according to a report by the land planning committee of the National Resources Board. If we are to continue to have these necessities of life, somebody on the farm must produce them and the soil must be kept productive.
Merchants and other businessmen are dependent upon agriculture because a large part of the goods they sell is either produced on the farm or is sold to persons who derive their purchasing power from the sale of products of the soil. The manufacturer, the businessman, the lawyer, the doctor may not be directly concerned with the condition of the farmer, but they are vitally concerned with whether or not the twothirds of the people of Georgia classed as rural have the money with which to buy shoes, clothes, automobiles, and other products and services. The network of railroads that extends throughout the South was established largely to open up this rich agricultural section and to provide transportation for its products to the markets of the world. Railroads and railroad employees today have a vital stake in the prosperity and permanence of agriculture because a large portion of the
15

revenue of the railroads is derived frQm the transportation of products of the farms to manufacturing plants and urban population centers and the shipment of manufactured products such as farm machinery and fertilizer back to the farm.
In recent years industrial development has made rapid progress in Georgia, but the trend of this development itself has been determined in a large measure by the nature of Georgia's agriculture. Cotton textile plants have been attracted to King Cotton's domain. More recently this principle has been demonstrated in relation to another potentially important farm product by the establishment of pulp mills in the pine forest section of Georgia and other southeastern states. Thus the pay rolls of manufacturing plants and railroads and the added purchasing power which they represent are dependent upon the agriculture for raw materials as well as for an important outlet for manufactured products.
For years Georgia agricultural leaders have preached crop diversification and live-at-home programs, and in relatively recent years the state has made much progress along that line. While cotton still remains by far the most important cash crop in the state, other crops like tobacco, peanuts, watermelons, peaches and truck crops annually bring thousands of dollars into the state.
While growing cotton, cotton, cotton, Georgia has for years produced little more than half the beef, pork, poultry and dairy products consumed in the state, and the farmers have been sending about one cotton crop in every ten out of the state to buy mules. Livestock production has been rapidly expanding in recent years, and hundreds of farmers over the state have already begun to fit livestock into a better balanced system of farming. More livestock and soil conservation go hand in hand because the crops that provide livestock feed are the close growing crops that conserve and protect the soil.
The trend toward more livestock production and the fact that onecrop cotton farming soon destroys the productive topsoil does not mean that farmers in Georgia and the South must or can stop growing cotton.
King Cotton Has Ruled
Just as agriculture has been the backbone of the South, cotton and other cash crops have been the backbone of southern agriculture. Since Georgia gave to the world the cotton gin, cotton has ruled as king and has made the South one of the two greatest agricultural regions in the country.
The sad part about it is that the rich soils of Georgia and the South that have been giving the nation its cotton and the South most of its prosperity have also been giving up the best part of their fertility.
16

Cotton, like other cash row crops, is a clean cultivated crop that leaves the field bare and unprotected most of the year and leave little to turn back into the land.
L L OTTON FI LD
Georgia farmers have paid King Cotton a heavy tribut of fertile soil. ow they have drawn up Ii bill of ris-hts, demanding that the King relinquish the steeper portions of his realm to soil conserving grass and trees.
Control of ero ion and con ervation of the soil would be an ea y matter in Georgia and the outh if \ e could top growing cotton and other cash row crop and pu t the land back to tree and gra s and other close growing protecti e crops. But the nation needs cotton, the outh needs the income from it, and the southern farmer must have the ca h he gets from growing ca h crops.
It would be foolhardy to ugge't that Georgia and the outh stop growing cotton, but it cannot be denied that the one-crop system of farming that has developed around cotton has much to do with the pre ent washed away condition of Georgia farm land and the plight of a large number of Georgia farmer.
Farmers must have one or more ca h crops. They can grow most of the food and feed they need on the farm, but they mu t have some ca h to bu many of the nece itie and the luxurie which modern standard of living demand.
Cotton is in eparably woven into the economic as well as the agricultural pattern of the tate. gricultural leader, including soil coner ation technician, agree, howe er, that eorgia farmers need to grow along with their cotton more close growing hay, pasture, and other
17

feed crops for livestock production, which will provide a better balanced farm program as well as protection for the soil.
Leading farmers in every section of the state have shown that they can grow cotton along with these other crops in such a way that they not only increase their farm revenue but also protect and improve their soil. Farmers in Soil Conservation Service demonstration areas throughout the state are showing that by observing the principles of proper land use, and by following sound conservation farming practices such as terracing, strip cropping, crop rotations, contour tillage, improvement of pastures, reforestation and woodland management, they can produce cotton and at the same time reduce soil erosion.
The answer to the problem of soil erosion in Georgia then is a system of farming that includes in addition to cotton other crops that will con-
serve and rebuild the land. In view of our knowledge of the soil and
of erosion, neither the present generation nor the farmers of the future can afford to continue to pay to King Cotton the toll of fertile soil which he has exacted in the past.
Suggested Study and References Consider the businesses, the jobs and the people in Georgia's cities and towns and decide how dependent they are on agricultural prosperity and the products of the farm. Talk with businessmen about it. Census figures and income reports in libraries will also help you to compare what agriculture, manufacturing and other businesses mean to Georgia in dollars and cents.
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CHAPTER IV
TYPES OF EROSION
For countless generations wind, rain, running water and other natural forces have been altering the physiography of the land. Great valleys have been carved in the earth's surface and vast areas have been reduced to level plains. This is normal, geologic erosion and is one of the fundamental and natural processes. Geologic erosion goes about its job in a very leisurely sort of way, operating so slowly as to be imperceptible in the relatively brief span of human life. Development of soil is a product of slow acting, normal, geologic erosion.
The invasion of man has speeded up the erosion process enormously. Had erosion remained at normal geological rates we might have gone complacently on our way, completely ignoring it just as our forefathers did. This, unfortunately, is no longer possible. Man has upset the natural balance by removing the protective vegetation. The resulting accelerated erosion of the soil is an abnormal condition which becomes progressively worse and which, unless treated in the proper way, will surely be death to agriculture in the areas affected. Contrasted with accelerated erosion, geologic erosion proceeds only at about the very slow rate at which soil is formed.
Gully Erosion
Although accelerated erosion, or erosion which has been hastened by the removal of the forest cover and further speeded up by reckless farming, clean cultivation, up-and-down hill farming and other destructive practices, as a process may go on so slowly that it can scarcely be detected, yet when measured over periods of 25, 50 or 100 years, the loss becomes astounding. Gullies are the most spectacular symptom of this destruction.
Gullies, like the dust storms of the West and the floods of the East, focus attention on erosion. Driving out over the highways and byways of the southern Piedmont, the observant person sees millions of gullies. "Little gullies, big gullies, gullies everywhere", is the impression he gets. These land cancers make one feel that an agricultural iudgment day is at hand.
Surveys reveal that in the Lower Piedmont section of Georgia alone, gullies affect more than 600,000 acres of land. More than 10 per cent of the upland in this section is severely gullied. Deep gullies occur most frequently in connection with sheet erosion. If left to go unchecked they will destroy much surrounding agricultural land for agricultural use.
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Evidence of the de tructive and deva tating for es of gullying may be seen in tewart County in the Coa tal Plain ection of southwe t Georgia. In commenting on the tev art County gullies, Wellington Brink, editor of oil Conser a/ion a ,"The big gullies in olve some 7,000 acres. The lengthening proces continues until the top of a ridge i reached; highway are moved 0 er and over again, and till they cannot get far enough out of the way. You can ee the old road of la t year and the year before where they run to meet a gull , pause for a jump of J 5 or '20 yard, resume on the far ide."
GULL Y OF TE\ RT 0 TY
Cullies, like dust storms, give focus to the fact of erosion. This aerial view shows a small portion of one of the canyon-like guUics of Stewart County, Georgia. O\\ing to peculiar subsoil conditions. this series of gullies has developed so rapidly that within the past 50 or <..0 years it has involved some iO,OOO acres.
tanding on the brink of one of the e gullie , one may look down for more than a hundred feet to it bottom. How many tons of soil have been wa hed away in the formation of the e gullie no one knows. It is enough to say that this oil,,, hich wa eon in the making, has been completely devastated in the past 50 or 60 year. The soil wa hed from these gullie not only ha been 10 t for farming, but it has been deposited el ewhere in stream channel, over rich bottom land and in re ervoirs prepared to impound water and not soil.
The tewart County gullies are in an exceptional kind of soil, yet they illustrate what may happen if the millions of little gullies are left to grow bigger and bigger.
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Sheet Erosion heet ero ion is the removal of soil more or less evenly over a considerable area. In contrast to gullying it is not so spectacular. It works like a thief at night, stealing away our soil so gently, noiselessly and gradually that we oftentimes do not realize the process is going on until a large part of our fertile topsoil has been washed away forever. This type of erosion too, is everywhere apparent. The results of this process may be een on millions of acres of red hills from which the topsoil ha been 10 t and on which thousand of farmers are eking out a bare living. Evidence of it may be seen in Georgia streams running red with oil, in reservoir rendered worthless by silting, and in once rich bottom lands which are now unproductive becau e poor soil has been deposited upon their surface.
BEET ERO 10
Although less spectacular than gullies. sheet erosion is the real destroyer of Georgia farm lands. On unprotected slopes, this insidious form of era ion removes the soil in thin layers over wide areas. Once the fertile, porous topsoil is gone, yields rapidly diminish and the progress of erosion is Quickened.
A reconnaissance ero ion survey made in 1934 of Georgia indicated that sheet erosion had already robbed the major part of her upland farms of 25 to 75 per cent of the original topsoil. A the virgin soil extended to a depth of 6 to 14 inches, this means that millions of acres of Georgia lands have been robbed of 3 to 10 inche of their best soil.
Sheet ero ion is a type of accelerated erosion which brings about more total 10 s of productive oil material than all the other types of erosion combined. About half of the cultivated and grazed area of the
21

United States is affected by sheet erosion in varying degrees. As this process continues and the depth of the topsoil decreases, the capacity of the land to absorb rainfall becomes correspondingly less and the runoff loss becomes greater and faster.
Dust Storms
When unprotected topsoil becomes dry and is blown through the air in large quantities we have dust storms or wind erosion. While the area most seriously affected by dust storms is in the middle western range and prairie country, wind erosion does do considerable damage in the sandy coastal plains of Georgia, where wind storms often form sand drifts similar to those of the middle west area and where blowing sand Injures crops.
The serious dust storms in the West are a direct result of preceding years of unwise land use, coupled with drought. What is now known as the "dust bowl" area was until the World War a range country. The region normally had low rainfall, and droughts have been common. To grow high-priced wheat during the World War, as well as other crops since then, farmers plowed up much of the grass that held the soil during the dry, windy weather. After these cultivated crops the land was left bare, the periodic droughts continued, and serious dust storms became more and more menacing.
The broad high plains region principally affected includes portions of Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. Here the ominous dust storms began on a large scale in 1933 and recurred in 1934-35. Wind-blown dust particles filtered into homes, shops and factories in such quantities as to damage furnishings, merchandise and machinery. General discomfort prevailed everywhere. The dust-laden air proved destructive to livestock and a menace to human health and life. Tons of good topsoil were blown from fields and piled up in irregular heaps along fences, over highways, railroads and ditches. Farm machinery and even buildings were buried, and the wind-blown sand cut the growing crops.
The menace of wind erosion has become a very serious problem in the plains region, and its control is recognized as an acute necessity. A complete land-use program must be adopted if its control is to be on a permanent basis; tillage measures will offer only temporary relief. A stabilizing balance between cropping and grazing land must be restored; cropping practices must include liberal use of vegetation, and preservation of as much residue or stubble as may be practicable.
Stream Bank Erosion
In addition to the types of erosion that primarily affect the surface
22

of the land, there is yet another form called stream bank or channel erosIOn.
This form of erosion is the cutting away of stream banks during the stress of heavy rains and resulting flood waters. Many stream channels are flanked with fertile strips of flood plains-bottom land composed of sediments laid down from overflow in pre-agricultural ages. Much of these alluvial plains represents valuable farm lands. Bottom land soils are subject to severe bank erosion, giving away easily to the cutting forces of stream action during high water, particularly along sharp bends. This type of erosion is becoming more destructive to fertile bottom lands because of increased runoff from upland areas with greater deposits of sand and other eroded materials in the channel beds. Beds composed of these deposits-sand bars-force the strong current out of its regular course to attack vulnerable points along the banks. This causes the cutting away and sloughing off of the unprotected sections.
ot only has the process of erosion stripped thousands of acres of rolling upland in .Georgia of its precious topsoil, but it also has deposited coarse sediment or silt over the lower and often richer bottom lands of the state and made much additional land almost worthless.
Suggested Study and References Which is the most serious problem in your community-gullies, sheet erosion, the silting over of rich bottom land or filling up of streams and power reservoirs? What Is Soil Erosion?-U. S. Dept. Agri., Misc. Pub. 286. "All Washed Up".-Collier's Magazine, Sept. 28, 1934.
23

CHAPTER V
RESULTS OF EROSION
The results of soil erosion are depleted, washed away soils; wornout farms that no longer produce profitably; dilapidated and abandoned communities with the accompanying problem of human suffering and necessary relief; increased flood menaces; clogged streams and power reservoirs and an all round unhealthy, unstable situation for the state and nation. The ultimate effects of soil devastating erosion no doubt will be just as marked on industry and the public generally as it is on the farmer and on agriculture.
Effects on Agriculture
Soil erosion can be justly charged with bringing poverty, drudgery, and hardships to thousands of Georgia farm families. Careless farm practices have resulted in increased soil loss and consequently lower crop yields. A badly eroded farm provides a bare existence for the farmer and his family. On worn-out land there is little money for taxes, repairs, conveniences, clothing, comforts and education. Such a condition produces insecurity, fear, discontent, disease, crime and general social and economic disorder. Many of the grandchildren of early settlers who made fortunes on the virgin lands are now stranded on the same farms, but not on the same land. The land has been altered by eroSIOn.
The results of past and present land misuse and abuse are evidenced in seriously disrupted and disorganized rural communities in all parts of the state. There prevails a vicious one-crop system, there are large numbers of landless tenants and share croppers who have little hope of reward other than a bare subsistence living. Most of these farm operators lack the farm equipment needed to establish more profitable farming enterprise. Frequent moves from farm to farm by tenants and croppers contribute to community instability with resulting loss to schools, churches and community life, as well as inadequate social advantages and contacts for the families. Of the total number of farms in this state as represented by the 1930 census, 68.2 per cent are operated by tenants and croppers. Members of the tenant and cropper families represent more than one million persons, or about 70 per cent of the rural population in 1930.
Living under such conditions of poverty, disease is prevalent and
the death rate high. Vital statistics show that approximately 50 per
cent of the deaths of 1933 resulted from preventable diseases such as typhoid, malaria, dysentery, diarrhea, pellagra, pneumonia, influenza,
24

tuberculosis and children's diseases. The total deaths reported in 1933 were 32,122. Untold suffering to individuals and heavy loss to society result from improper medical care in poverty-stricken rural areas, where the land has washed away or been worn out by careless farming.
Effects on Industry
Since the South is so dependent upon agriculture it is easy to see that washed away soil and penniless farmers who live thereon are of vital concern to business, transportation and manufacturing.
Owing in part at least to poor soils which erosion helped make unproductive, the average cash income for each Georgia farm family in 1935 was only $120.* Of course this means that thousands of inhabitants of rural Georgia have insufficient food and clothing, improper medical attention and can enjoy few of the luxuries of life. The farmer has no money to deposit in the city banks. He is a poor credit risk; therefore, the banker cannot afford to make him loans. The Georgia farmer needs and desires more clothes, more beds, more bed linens, more and better furniture, more farming machinery, and more conveniences for the farm home, yet he cannot purchase these things because of his lOW income. Naturally, every type of business is affected.
Erosion also has resulted in the clogging of streams and filling up of reservoirs with soil that has washed down from cultivated hillsides.
Billions of dollars have been spent in improving river navigation, in the construction of power and municipal reservoirs and in establishing irrigation systems. Silting is rapidly destroying the utility of these costly installations. In many instances the reservoirs have already been filled with mud. In the Piedmont section of Georgia and other southeastern states, numerous power and water supply reservoirs have silted up to their very brims in the past 25 or 30 years.
The Piedmont section has been famous for its water-power resources. One of the first acti vi ties of the early settlers was to build a mill to grind the grain for the community. Erosion is robbing the region of such advantages.
When cotton was introduced in the South and the invention of the cotton gin made possible the production of cotton on a large scale, the first great industrial centers of the regions sprang into being. Many of the valuable water-power sites were developed; dams were erected to
*Figures given by Kenneth Treanor, Farm Management Specialist of University of Georgia.
25

impound water in reservoirs. Textile mill were built and water power whirled their spindles.
But the useful:life of a reservoir in an area seriously affected with erosion is short. Many of the smaller re ervoirs passed, within two or
A ILT FILLED RESERVOIR
Streams that once were cr.ystal clear now run red \ViOl the life blood of the soi1. Deposits of silt from the farl1lcrs~ fields are destroying the usefulness of expensive reservoirs, clogging sil-cam channels, and increasing the hazard of floods.
three decades, from a period of usefulness to abandonment. Many filled with silt; their dam were raised, and they filled again. Throughout the Piedmont section of Georgia and other state there are scores of these smaller mills, once the source of community power and wealth, which now, lacking adequate water storage, have either been abandoned or are u eful only for a few hour a day. Their power re ervoirs are filled with ilt, and they are dependent largely on the run of the stream for power.
Studies of siltation of 56 of the larger reservoirs in the southern Piedmont reveal that J3 of them are now completely filled with silt.
The average u eful life of these has been only years, and the maxi-
mum life only 6 years. The J3 dams are first-class concrete and ma onry structures, representing large initial investments. More than half of them are from 30 to 50 feet high and original! y impounded water to a di tance of from 4 to 7 miles up valley. On examination, all reservoirs that received drainage from agricultural Piedmont areas were
26

found filling with silt and other erosion debris at a rate in accord with the conditions of erosion in the watershed.
Large and small reservoirs pass through the same cycle; they all, in time, fill and lose their usefulness for water storage. No economical method for clearing them has been devised.
A good example of how seriously silting can affect a reservoir can be found at the Lloyd Shoals power dam and reservoir near Jackson, Georgia. A dam 100 feet high and 1,750 feet long was built in 1910 to make the reservoir, which at crest stage included more than 4,000 acres.
A careful survey 24 years later, in 1935, revealed that 274' million tons of silt had washed into the reservoir. As a result of that silt the dam would hold 12 per cent less water than when it was built.' At that rate the dam is filling up 2 per cent a year and will be completely filled with silt in 50 years.
This silt destroys aquatic vegetation for fish food as well as places where the fish can lay their eggs. Silting of streams also results in stagnant water which is a menace to public health.
In contrast thqe are the great power reservoirs of the north Georgia mountains which are fed by water from forested areas. The watel s in these reservoirs generally are beautifully clear because the surrounding territory is blanketed with trees and other vegetation which hold the soil in place.
Floods
The records and other data we have show clearly that when this country was first settled floods were less frequent and much lower in intensity than they are today.
No other land cover is equal to forest cover for catching and holding rain water. The porous "A" layer absorbs water rapidly, retards its rate of surface movement, and permits its slow absorption into lower soil layers. Recent well-established figures on rates of water absorption show that the top layer of forest soil absorbs rainfall 50 times as fast as does the soil of adjacent cultivated fields. The growth of the forest Oglethorpe found when he came over to this country acted like a billion little dams which served to prevent the rapid runoff which causes floods.
Now that the forest has been cut away and the fields plowed and cultivated for decades without thought for their preservation, erosion has taken off a large slice of that absorptive top layer. The subsoil layer has gradually become exposed. This subsoil layer is hard and compact and does not absorb water readily. The subsoil is usually clayey and the first rush of muddy water across it seals the top of the
'Silting oj Reservoirs.-D. S. Dept. Agri., Technical Bulletin, 524.
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soil much as it would clog up a fine flour sifter or cloth sieve. When the rains come the water cannot get into these bare, eroded soil; consequently it rushe in headlong haste to the nearest small stream. From there it speed to the creek, and from the creek to the river, gaining
A SILT COVER D FI LD
The gay "Song of the ChattaJloochec" might well become a lument as every tributary brings an added load of silt from the farmers' fields. Here in the valleys of I-Iall, Little River at nood stage s(-rc\\'ed tJ1C heavier porti It of it... burden across this once fertile bottom land as it joined the waters of the Chattahoochee near Gainesville.
in volume and velocity as it goes. Destruction and deatli. often follow in its wake. More surface runoff means increased erosion and greater stream channel and reservoir silting, re ulting in more frequent and higher floods.
uggested tudy and Reference it down with your father and with several bu ines men and get them to tell you just what farm ruined by ero ion, lower yields of crop at higher co t, farmers ha ing le s money to spend, power reservoirs filled with ilt and other re ult of erosion mean to their businesses. oil Erosion a ational Menace.- . . Dept. gri. Cir.33. i/ting oj Reseruoirs.- . . Dept. Agri., Tech. Bu!. 524.
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CHAPTER VI
WHAT HAS HAPPENED IN OTHER COUNTRIES?
Dr. W. C. Lowdermilk, of the Division of Research, Soil Conservation Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture, says, "The history of civilization is a record of struggles against the progressive desiccation of civilized lands. The more ancient the civilization, the dryer and more wasted, usually, is the supporting country. In fact, so devastating seems the occupation of man that, with a few striking exceptions, a desert or near desert condition is often associated with his long habitation of a region.
The Soil Destroyed
"Recently the archaeologists have turned back the pages of history, not merely centuries, but thousands of years. Post-mortems of buried civilizations suggest that it has been the hand of man more than climatic changes which has reduced once rich and populous regions to desolation and poyerty. After a long struggle, a civilization either died or its people migrated to more productive regions. Many ancient prosperous civilizations are crumbling in ruins or lie buried in sands and debris largely caused by the destructive treatment of the lands on which they were dependent for sustenance.
"According to archaeologists the Sahara, the Central Asia deserts, arid parts of Palestine, Mesopotamia, the Gobi and North China were once teeming with human life. Traditions of peoples descended from ancient quarters tell of the immigration to their present habitation from what are now desert regions of Central Asia. The origin of European peoples was in the east. The Hindus came from the north, the Chinese from the west. Yet this land from which they came is today an immense desert where only limited regions are still able to nourish a scanty population. Sir Aurel Stein's discoveries of sand-buried ruins in Central Asia revealed numerous towns a square mile or more in size in a region now depopulated. There were ruins of cities, castles, aqueducts, reservoirs and all the evidences of lost culture, of vanished populations. Gibbon declared that 50':) cities once flourished in what are now the dry, depopulated plains of Asia Minor. The recently discovered ruin of Tepe Gawra in northeastern Mesopotamia is claimed to be the oldest remaining town in the world. The ruins show that in B. C. 3700 this was a well-planned city, which must have represented long ages of prior development. The peninsula of Arabia contained an enormous population, called Seland, which at times annoyed Babylon from B. C. 2500 to 616. Now, a few fierce nomadic Bedouins, remnants
29

of former cultures, fight for existence over every drop of water and every sign of vegetation. The great Sahara Desert has recently revealed monuments, ruins of cities, temples, implements and unearthed cut trees. Campalion, the famous Egyptologist, says of it, ' ....and so the astonishing fact dawns upon us that this desert was once a region of groves and fountains and the abode of happy millions.' "
Dr. Lowdermilk has given us a brief but vivid picture of what happened to those older countries that neglected to preserve their soils. When agriculture fails, nations fall.
Can This Tragedy Happen to Our Country? At least to the United States goes the speed record in time and extent for creating man-made desert conditions. Ours is a new country, yet the dust storms of the Old World, long occupied by man, have already appeared in the New World, and for the same reasons.
Suggested Study and References Talk with your history teacher about the downfall of ancient nations that failed to conserve the land and perpetuate their agricultural production. "Man-Made Deserts."-Pacijic Affairs, Vol. 8, NO.4, 1935. Soil Conservation.-July and Oct., 1937. Lavonia Times, Lavonia, Ga.-Special Edition, March 18, 1938.
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-~--_.- - - - - - - - - -

CHAPTER VII
DEVELOPMENT OF EROSION CONTROL
Little was said or done about saving soils in this country until after the Revolution. Home from the war, farmers had some time to observe their fields. One of the first evils they recognized was soil washing. The writings of Washington, Jefferson and Madison mention it.
Washington and Jefferson, both progressive farmers, were among the first to work out crop rotations in an effort to prevent soil exhaustion. They introduced a seven year rotation, making abundant use of clover, and followed it closely; they grew little corn. Both were prejudiced against this crop, beliving it to be especially exhausting to the soil. Washington, fearing soil exhaustion, restricted his plantings of the most prevalent row crop of his day, tobacco.
Jefferson was one of the first advocates of contour tillage. He wrote to a friend il]- 1813 about his farm in Albemarle County, Virginia: "Our country is hilly and we had been in the habit of plowing in straight rows whether up or down hill, in oblique lines or however they led, and our soil was all rapidly running to the rivers. We now plow horizontally following the curvature of the hills and hollows on dead level, however crooked the lines may be. Every furrow thus acts as a reservoir to receive and retain the waters, all of which go to the benefit of the growing plant instead of running off into streams."
But Washington and Jefferson were exceptional farmers. Although neither of them planted cotton or tobacco anything like as extensively as we today, they sensed the evil of erosion on their Virginia plantations with better vision than many present-day agriculturists. Even their neighbors failed to adopt their farming practices. The type of farming was determined more by habit than by reason. Farmers cleared new lands, grew tobacco for about three years, and then planted the land continuously to wheat and corn as long as it produced five or six bushels of wheat or ten or twelve bushels of corn to the acre. After the land became too worn to produce even these meager yields, it was then thrown out to rest for a period of years, and a new patch was cleared.
Shortly after the Revolutionary War, cotton came to the Piedmont of the Carolinas and Georgia and brought with it a short period of prosperity. But here too the colonial system of land management persisted and as a result much land became exhausted, washed and gullied. By 1825, according to early writers, so much land devoted to cotton or tobacco in parts of the Piedmont was gullied and abandoned to broom
31

sedge and pine that farmers pushed their clearings to higher ridge lands which their fathers had deemed not worth cultivating.
Only after little new land was left to clear did farmers arouse themselves to the interest of soil saving. The farm journals during the period of 1830 abounded in suggestions and some of the defense measures proposed were given trial. At this time horizontal plowing, as practiced years before by Jefferson, was introduced into the southern Piedmont, and hillside ditching, then in vogue in Europe, excited further interest. The object of hillside ditching was to provide drainage ways at intervals across the fields to intercept water flowing across slopes and carry it off to the sides of fields. Before a storm of ridicule these simple defense measures gained popularity and by 186o were widely employed. In 1850, Daniel Lee, a visitor from the North, wrote: "In recalling to mind the many plantations visited in South Carolina and Georgia, nothing left so enduring an impression as the skillful manner in which the hillside ditches were constructed to prevent washing of the surface soil. In this manner planters in these states have excelled all we have witnessed elsewhere in the Union, and we have seen most of it".
Planters made some slight progress in rotations. The more progressive operators adopted a rotation of cotton, corn and small grains, discarding the practice of growing one crop on the land continuously. Others who preferred no small grain, adhered to a rotation of cotton, corn and "rest".
About this time terracing came into more general use, especially in the southern Piedmont. Although some terraces had been built prior to 1850, the practice was employed rather ineffectively throughout the greater part of the nineteenth century. Terraces were crude and often were constructed in such a manner-placed on such steep, erodible soils-or so neglected as to be more harmful than helpful. Built solely to reduce the rate of surface runoff from the land, the earlier terraces frequently were constructed with so much "fall" that water flowed with sufficient erosive force to cut through at the bends and weaker parts of the embankments. Once they had broken, these narrow terrace ridges, so narrow that a man could step across one, served only to concentrate the water, causing gullying with each heavy rain. Since little attention was given to the disposal of water at terrace ends, gullies formed at these points. In planning these earlier terraces little attention was given to the slope of the land.
Little effort was expended in maintaining terraces. They often filled, and water flowed across them, descending over the steeper slopes with the speed of a cataract and gouging out gullies as it went. Thousands of fields have been abandoned entirely or in part, especially
32

throughout the Piedmont of South Carolina and Georgia, because of gullies forming from neglected terraces. Reconnaissance erosion surveys indicate that at least two million acres of land in Georgia, all at one time terraced, has been abandoned to old field pine. ) The outline of these old terraces may be seen in now wooded areas which were once cultivated.
As early as 1883 a Georgian, David Nickols of Allatoona, outlined a system of farming hillsides which if followed by all farmers would have avoided much of the serious erosion problem the country now faces. The method outlined by Mr. Nickols called for a system of level terraces with grass protected outlets to carry the surplus water from the terraces, with each terrace protected by a strip of close growing uncultivated crop planted immediately above the water channel, and with the entire field systematically rotated with diversified crops. That system is not so far different from what farmers are finding best today, but there is little to indicate that Nickols' neighbors followed that system since even the farm he ow.ned is seriously eroded as a result of improper farming practices in rece'nt years.
Late in the nineteenth century, Priestly Mangum, a farmer at Wake Forest, North Carolina, made the first great contribution to modern terrace design, creating the type of terrace that bears his name. Mangum terraces were the first of the broad-base type and were perhaps the first that were really effective.
About 1924 M. L. Nichols, then head of the agricultural department of engineering at the Alabama Polytechnic Institute, and his associates, devised a broad channel type terrace superior in some respects to the Mangum terrace for certain soils. This type of terrace is essentially a broad, shallow ditch buttressed on the lower side by an embankment of earth; it is built entirely from the upper side by moving the soil down from above. Most of the water behind the terrace ridge flows in a channel below the original surface of the ground, and complete terrace failures seldom occur. This type of terrace is now being widely used.
Concerted Drive Against Erosion
Through establishment of the United States Department of Agriculture and the founding of the state agricultural colleges and experiment stations, the sciences have slowly become effective tools for the control of erosion as well as solution of other agricultural problems. The untiring researches of these agencies have brought forth valuable information about the nature of the soil, about plant foods, about climatic and plant food requirements of different plants and other knowledge essential to modern day agriculture.
33

1'1
This knowledge has been imparted to thousands of students in the classrooms of the agricultural colleges, where they have been trained as agricultural leaders to continue the researches and carry the information back to farmers and homemakers. Extending the college campuses to the entire state, the state agricultural extension services, from a
small beginning about 25 years ago, now have county and home demon-
stration agents in almost every county to demonstrate and explain better farming practices, which include practices to save the soil.
Slowly there had been growing a general consciousness among farmers and the public that something must be done to stop soil erosion. The Federal government in 1933, and soon after, brought together all of its soil conservation activities in what is now known as the Soil Conservation Service, a pelmanent bureau of the Department ot Agriculture. Thus was started a concerted national soil and water conservation effort. The Soil Conservation Service, with the information already available, and in co-operation with state agencies, has set out to further develop and to demonstrate under actual farming conditions in limited areas locally adapted, practical methods of sound land use and erosion control that will conserve the soil while making use of it.
The Soil Conservation Service has erosion control demonstration projects at Athens, Americus, Rome, Gainesville, and LaGrange, and has been using CCC camp enrollees to develop similar demonstration areas at nin"e other places in the state. The latest phase of the erosion control program in Georgia is the organization of soil conservation districts under a law passed by the Georgia legislature in 1937, and under which farmers may band themselves together to control erosion co-operatively. Under the law they work out their own plan for fighting soil erosion in the district and then call on the different agencies of the state and Federal governments for technical aid. Several such districts have been organized under this law and the Soil Conservation Service, the state extension service and other agencies are now co-operating with them.
Depletion of the soil, surplus cash crops, low prices and meager farm incomes are all associated. This has been recognized by the Federal government in the agricultural adjustment programs of the last few years. Those programs have been administered by the Agricultural Adjustment Administration co-operating with state agricultural extension service. Under the adjustment programs farmers have been paid special benefit payments for shifting land from surplus cash crops to soil conserving crops and for adopting other soil conservation practices.
All of these and other conservation programs of the state and Federal governments are simply expressions of the widespread erosion
34

consciousness that has been developing in recent years. They are attempts to work out a permanent national program that will check the soil waste that has been so rapidly going on, and to protect and conserve our soils for the prosperity and very existence of this and future generations.
Suggested Study and References Get your parents, grandparents and other older relatives to explain how conditions and farming methods are different today from when they were boys and girls, how this change came about gradually and something of what it means. Soil Defense in the Piedmont.~U. S. Dept. Agri., Farmers' Bulletin, 1767. Histories dealing with the farming and talks of Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Henry W. Grady and other statesmen. Excerpts from "Preservation and Protection of Cultivated Land.s from Surface :Washing," (1883) by David. Nickols.-Soil Conservation Service.
35

CHAPTER VIII
WISE LAND USE
If misuse of land has brought about the present staggering soil loss, then it is obvious that the way to reverse the process and restore nature's equilibrium is to introduce correct land-use practices. Just what specific things need to be done under varying climatic and soil conditions, in light of the fact that the farmer must continue to produce, cannot be written in I, 2, 3 order. Various methods must be used in coordination with each other according to the peculiar needs of each piece of land.
Each farm in a given watershed presents a separate and distinct problem, or a whole series of problems. Each farm must be studied and the needs of the farm and farm family correlated with such physical factors as soil, slope, degree of erosion and the cash value of soil binding and soil building crops.
The revised farm plan which has as its major objective the control of soil loss must also incorporate the principle that the maximum area of the farm should be maintained in or restored to the condition of soil stabilization under the original cover; that is, permanent grass or forest. Relatively large areas of steep and eroded lands usually must be retired or planted to trees and shrubs. Other areas, less steep, but unsuited for cultivated crops, can best be put to permanent pasture or perennial forage crops.
The general principle is that there should be no wasteland on the farm. Every nook and corner should be made to produce its share of the farm income either directly as a cash crop, feed crop, pasture, as fuel, lumber or other forest products, or indirectly as game cover and feed, as recreation grounds or as an aesthetic background which will make the farm more attractive and more valuable.
The cards are stacked against any farmer who attempts to modify the land to fit the particular crop. It is much safer to modify the crop to fit the land.
Vegetate Steep Slopes
The conversion of steep slopes from cropland to woodland or perennial forage crops is simply the carrying out of a natural process. Careful studies of present-day land use reveal that such areas are the first to be abandoned on most farms.
Other things being equal, soils on steep slopes erode much more rapidly under clean cultivation than do soils on fields which are less
36

teep. 'A'hen the e excessi ve slopes are cleared of their forest cover, and plowed and planted to row crops, they soon become unproductive. The common practice is to farm such areas a few year until they become scarred with gullies then turn them back to nature to heal.
I t would have been much better had the steep slopes never been cleared of the trees which once covered them, but now that this in most instances already has been done, the next best step in a wi eland-use program is to restore these areas to a condition similar to that under which they once existed-plant them to trees, to grass or adapted hay
A VERY YOUNG FOREST
Dangerously near to desert waste. this land can still support a growth of trees. These tiny pine seed lings will in 8 few ,)'cars provide a cover for the land. Beneath a protective blanket of pine needles and deca.ying vegetation. Nature will once again take up her endless process of rebuilding.
crops. This treatment will not only control erosion but in the end will yield a much more satisfactory income.
37

On many farms there are areas which are so badly eroded that on them profitable row crop production is impossible. Such areas, if neglected or left unprotected, may in time develop into gullies and thus become a liability to the farmer. If reforested, planted to kudzu, Lespedeza sericea, or to the erosion resisting crop to which the particular soil is best adapted, they may be converted into valuable assets. It is an evident fact that unwise land use has caused these unproductive areas. Wise land use based upon the principle that there should be no wasteland on the farm, is the only procedure that can and will restore them to a semblance of their former usefulness.
Use Croplands Wisely
All of the land on the average farm cannot be planted in trees or grass. Farmers must grow cotton, corn, tobacco, and other row crops to make money. On these crops, commerce and industry must depend for raw products, and to them the urban population must look for food.
The problem of conserving water and preventing soil erosion on land assigned to forest cover and sod is comparatively simple. The proper treatment of cultivated areas is much more complicated. The forest and grass treatment is entirely in conformity with nature's procedure. The cultivation of land is opposed to that procedure, but civilization is built on the production of cultivated crops. The problem then of growing tilled crops resolves itself into one of securing the benefits of cultivation in a manner which departs least from natural arrangement. The several practices which in combination go a long way toward meeting these conditions include cultivation itself, contour plowing, terracing, strip planting or strip cropping, rotation of crops, and a liberal use of soil building and soil binding crops. (These practices will be more fully treated in following chapters.)
The management of cropland in such a way as to conserve the soil and build up its fertility is neither impossible nor impracticable. Many European farmers have been doing this for centuries. Their farms, even though located in rolling or hilly countries and cultivated for hundreds of years, are perhaps more fertile today then they have ever been. Sound land use is the answer.
Lands Held in Trusteeship
In the wise use of our soils it is essential that we look upon the land not as ours to do with as we please but as a trust to nurture and protect. This basic heritage was handed down to us from the past. We in turn shall pass it on down to generations yet unborn; therefore, it is not ours to misuse and abuse.
38
----~- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Suppose you as an individual are given the guardianship of an estate. Legally, you are held responsible for the safe and proper handling of that estate. Should you prove unfaithful to that trust by misappropriating any portion of its funds, you become guilty not only of squandering that which rightfully belongs to someone else, but you lay yourself liable to prosecution in the courts of the land. The penalty may be a heavy fine, or even imprisonment. Through this betrayal of trust, you suffer and the heirs and beneficial ies suffer.
Similarly, we are guardians of the land. If our forefathers have through misuse and abuse allowed the fertile topsoil to wash away, we can justly charge them with being unfaithful to a trust. That they are guilty is clearly evident. The appalling wastage to which we have subjected our soils has resulted in the partial and complete destruction of millions of acres. The attendant evils and suffering are reflected in diminished business and increased unemploymen~ in the urban centers, and poverty, undernourishment, declining social and economic values and a hopeless outlook on life in the country.
Unfortunately there is no legal obligation attached to the ownership ofland that binds the possessor to manage the soil wisely, but there is a moral and economic obligation which is far more binding. The soil has been formed over a period of thousands of years. Out of that soil we have carved a great nation. If we maintain and preserve that greatness, we must possess a large expanse of good farm land and this land must be properly utilized by strong, stouthearted, purposeful and prosperous farmers who hold sacred the land intrusted to their care.
Suggested Study and References
A group could not study land use better than to get the county agricultural agent, some near-by vocational agriculture teacher, a worker in a soil conservation demonstration area, or a good farmer to lead a tour over some farm, plan that farm to make the best use of the land and still provide for needs of the farm family.
Rich Land, Poor Land, Stuart Chase.-McGraw Hill Co., New York.
Conservation oj the Soil, A. F. Gustafson.-McGraw Hill Co.
Soil Erosion and Its Control, Q. C. Ayres.-McGraw Hill Co.
Little Waters.-Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D. C.
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CHAPTER IX
BACK TO VEGETATION
In building up a true conception of the influence of trees and grass in conserving soil and water, one can best begin by drawing a simple picture of running water at work on a limited plot of ground. Enlarge this picture to cover small valleys, and finally multiply it a thousand or a million fold, and you get a clearer idea of the immense cumulative effect of the destructive forces which are unleashed by the abuse of the soil and its natural cover.
Jn watering a lawn or a well mulched flower bed one can see how the water trickles along the ground, colliding with grass blades or dead material, splits up into tiny rivulets, spreads out slowly and remains clear until it sinks into the ground. The same water falling on rolling bare soil gathers headway, rapidly concentrates into little rills and streams, and with its growing speed and concentration begins to tear loose the finer particles of soil, then sand and finally gravel. Where its speed is checked, the turbulent rivulet deposits its load. If it still gathers speed and volume, it begins to cut a gully and its load of sand and gravel act as an abrasive to cut faster and deeper.
This example shows in miniature how close growing vegetation protects the soil and how the absence of vegetation permits soil to be easily carried away. By spreading the water over the surface of the ground and checking its flow, close growing vegetation reduces the force and cutting power of runoff water. Thus weakened, it cannot dislodge the soil particles which moreover are bound together by the tangle of roots. Without vegetation there is nothing but the friction and absorptiveness of the soil to keep water from following its inherent habit of going down hill as fast as it can. As has already been stated, the cutting power of running water and its ability to transport soil increase greatly with increased speed. After the vegetative cover is removed, rain and sun pack the soil to such an extent that each succeeding rain makes new gullies or deepens old ones, and the destructive combination of speed and concentration gains headway.
How Forests Protect the Land
A well-kept forest is one of the best of all natural soil holders. It has a dense cover of trees, shrubs and smaller plants that retard the flow of water. The roots of trees spread far and wide to great depths, much deeper than roots of grass or farm crops, and the roots of the smaller plants help to bind the topsoil. On the forest floor lies a blanket of leaves or needles, twigs and branches, and dead grass and herbs vary-
40

ing from a few inches to a foot or more in depth. Beneath thi mat is the spongy wood mold or humu derived from the decay of generations of leaf fall.
Overhead spreads a canopy of leaves and branches that break the force of rain. \ hen the rain water breaks through this canopy, it has next to contend with the leaf litter \ hich retards the water in its flow over the suface, soaks up part of it, and passes part of it down to the humu and thence into the minerals, oil and underground water channels. In their life processe trees ab orb large quantities of water from the ground and pa s it off a vapor from their leave. By these means the forest intercepts and evaporate a con iderable part of the rainfall, ab orbs another part and slow down the urface flow of the remainder, retarding its pread and reducing its erosive action on the soil. Even in heavy rains the oil under the den e, well-kept forest, is little disturbed, and the treams that derive their water from uch a fore tare likely to remain clear.
AT RE' BLA KET
1 an has been able to devise no method of soil protection that excels the blanket which nature LJruvidcs be neath a good stand of trees in an ungrazed. unburned forest. \Vater absorhed through this spongclike Inantle of vegetation into undergroun I channels emerges often far below from hubbling springs.
The things that make the fore t a good oil holder al 0 make it a good water holder. During a rain the flow of urface water i retarded. More of it ha a chance to sink down through channel left by decayed root and soil pore space into absorptive leaf litter, then into the decayed leaf mold and so down into mineral oil and thefi ures of the rocks. There it joins the great re ervoir of underground water that feeds
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springs, brooks and rivers. The deep, tangled root system of the wellkept forest also greatly aids this process of seepage, for water flows along living roots, or through the tubes formed by decayed roots, far down into soil.
Careful measurements reveal that forest soils often absorb from 60 to 100 per cent of light or moderate rain. Even during violent or longcontinued rains, such torrents as rush from bare, gullied land are rare in a forest.
Underground storage of water by forests is an important natural means of regulating and equalizing stream flow. The immense quantity of water carried into the earth by the absorbent ground cover of the forest may percolate in the ground for months before it is used by plants on the land. We spend millions of dollars to provide storage reservoirs by damming streams when we have a much larger natural reservoir to hold water in the soil if we but use it.
Georgia has 23,000,000 acres in forest and potential forest land. This is two-thirds of all the land in the state, and any wise land-use program must of necessity include sound management of that land. Good woodland management practices stated briefly include: protecting the woods from fire and uncontrolled grazing; managing the trees as a crop, and planting more trees on areas that are too steep or too badly eroded for cultivated crops. These are practical things that any farmer can do. By following them he will make more money from his trees, save and improve the soil and insure a lasting supply of wood, posts, timber and other forest products for himself and the generations that will come after him. Following good, protective woodland practices on Georgia's vast acreage of woodland will also provide food and cover for wild life in the state.
Grass Holds Soil and Water
Like trees, grass is also one of the most effective erosion control agents known. This statement is supported by the results of tests conducted by various erosion control experiment stations. The Statesville, North Carolina, station found that on plots containing a dense sad of grass, soil movement was so slow that 2,000 years would be required for erosion to remove seven inches of topsoil. On similar plots planted continuously to cotton, the rate of erosion was so rapid that all of the topsoil would be removed in the short space of 75 years. The total water loss from the grass plots was less than one-half of that which occurred on cotton plots. Numerous other tests show similar results.
Where there are green leaves above ground, even in the dead of winter, there are always live roots below. But there are many more
42

live roots when the grass is growing vigorously than when it is dormant. This alternate pruning and growing of new roots also takes place following changes in the weather during the growing season. In other words, there is a direct relationship between the amount of top growth of a grass and its root development. This unique characteristic of the grasses is true of very few other plants.
Another soil saving characteristic of grasses may be attributed to their habit of stem growth. As a rule, plants belonging to this group grow close to the ground and thus provide a thick mat of protective foliage. Grasses, like forest cover, Jay over the land a thick blanket which retards the flow of water, forcing it to penetrate the soil or causing it to move off so slowly that little or no erosion follows.
In the United States approximately 500 million acres are devoted to grazing land and pasture. The land in Georgia given over to this use covers an area of over 8 million acres. This includes "woodland pasture," "plowable pasture," and other pasture lands. This acreage is not enough, considering the poor treatment given much of it.
Until recently pastures of the South have been considered of only minor importance. . Very often the poorest, roughest land on the farm has been used for pasture and given practically no attention. The common practice is to take a piece of land which has become so badly eroded that it will no longer produce profitable crops, stretch a few strands of barbed wire around it and call it a pasture. Such areas provide scarcely any grazing and are constantly exposed to further erosion. Thousands of such pastures may be seen all over the South.
It is not enough merely to convert certain steep 01 eroded areas from cultivated crops to pasture. If such sections of the farm are to function efficiently in the scheme of wise land-use planning they must be made to retUln a fair share of the farm income. Much of the land now devoted to pasture in Georgia and the South is so deficient in plant food that to develop good pastures on it requires applications of fertilizer, possibly lime, and seeding with grass or a mixture of grass and legume seed.
Small Grains and Legume Crops
Although grasses are valuable erosion control plants in pastures, the grasses adapted to Georgia do not fit well into the cropping system on cultivated land. Of course, farmers cannot plant all their land to grass for pasture or to trees. They have to cultivate a leasonable amount of land, but there are other close growing ClOpS like small grains and legumes which they can fit into their cropping plans and thus afford a large amount of soil protection and improvement.
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They can grow oats, wheat and rye or other small grains during the winter and early spring. They can plant their cultivated fields during the winter to annual cover crops like crimson clover, vetch, and Austrian winter peas, which blanket the land and protect it from erosion during the winter and early spring as well as produce organic matter and gather nitrogen to turn back into the soil.
They can grow such summer annual legumes as lespedeza, cowpeas, velvet beans, crotalaria and soybeans interplanted with row crops (or broadcast) and get just that much more protection for the soil, as well as organic matter and nitrogen to turn under. On the steeper, worst eroded lands they may need to grow such deep-rooted perennial legumes as kudzu, Lespedeza sericea and alfalfa, which give a continual blanket of protection to the soil as well as produce hay.
All of these close growing crops put a cover of dense vegetation over the soil as well as send thousands of roots into the soil to help hold it in place. The result is much the same as is obtained from grass, except that the grass is usually a permanent pasture crop and stays on the soil continuously.
Numbers of experiments show clearly that these close growing crops check soil erosion. For example, vetch in the cropping system in tests at the Alabama Experiment Station reduced soil loss from cotton fields as much as 50 per cent. Dming one heavy rain near Rome, Georgia, in March, 1938, practically no soil was lost from a plot with a dense cover of crimson clover while a half ton of soil pel acre washed off from a similar plot near-by that had been planted to cotton continuously.
Suggested Study and References
Get samples of soil from a wooded area, from a pasture covered with grass, from a field planted in close growing legumes, and from a clean cultivated cotton field and study the organic content and color of the soil. What is the difference and why?
Our Forests, What They Are and What They Mean to Us.-U. S. Dept. Agri., Misc. Pub., 162. Ten Billion Little Dams.-U. S. Dept. Agri. Grass in Soil Erosion Control.-U. S. Dept. Agri., mimeographed publication, SCS-TP~4. Cover Crops for Soil Conservation.-U. S. Dept. Agri., Farmer's Bulletin, 1758. Soil Conservation.-Sept., 1937. Wildlife Conservation Through Erosion Control in the Piedmont.U. S. Dept. Agri., Farmers' Bulletin, 1788.
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CHAPTER X MECHA ICAL ERO 10 CONTROL A complete erosion control program involves both mechanical and vegetative measures, but tor simplicity we will discuss general mechanical and general vegetative measure. eparately. Agricultural engineering plays an important part in the general scheme of effective ero ion control. The type and extent of engineering, or mechanical mea ures used in controlling erosion, vary according to the section of the country and the kind of land to be treated. Each section has its own pal ticular problems. Factors invol ved must be accurately analyzed in any well laid plans of ero ion control. These factor include soil types and their adaptation, lope and topography, character and extent of ero ion, intensity of rainfall and the type of farming to be followed. For convenience of discu sion, the mechanical phases of ero ion control are divided into terracing, outlet channel con truction, contour tillage and contour furrowing.
Terracing Terracing is ba ed on the principle upon which all the more succe sful erosion control meaSlll es depend; that IS lowing the speed of
BROAD CHAN EL TERRACES
Runoff water gains velocity and cuttin&, power on long slopes. Broad channel terraces break the long slopes into shorter intervals and conduct surplus water slowly out of cultivated fields along winding channels.
45

the flow of water causes it to lose most ot Its power to scour and to carry a soil load. Erosion, when fields are clean cultivated, is usually greater on long slopes than on short slopes. On longer slopes the water, unless it is checked, gains enough velocity to cut out and carry off greater loads of soil than it does in flowing down a shorter slope.
A terracing system takes advantage of this character of flowing water by breaking a long slope into a series of ohort slopes, as far as the flow of water down the slope is concerned..
Results obtained by erosion experiment stations on the relative loss of soil by erosion from terraced and unterraced land demonstrate conclusively the value and effectiveness of terraces as conse-rvers of the soil and water. Terraces make running water walk and theleby reduce its capacity to carry heavy loads of soil. Properly planned and properly constructed and maintained terraces make the foundation fot an erosion control program in the South. They establish definite guides for contour cultivation, which makes each row somewhat of a little- terrace to hold water and slow up its flow across the field.
Information about how to construct terraces can be obtained from county agents or publications of the United States Department of Agriculture and of state colleges and experiment stations.
Vegetated Waterways
Little thought has been given in the past to the disposal of water once it was conducted out of the field by te:races. The record of this oversight is written in the havoc of gullies throughout the Piedmont and other regions. Water concentrated by terraces is the direct cause of gullying in many instances. Terraces frequently in the past have caused gullies along farm property lines because terrace water was discharged there without protecting the outlet. Many country roads have been damaged and even ruined by reckless dumping of terrace water into roadside ditches. There are roads in the Piedmont that have been relocated four or five times because gullying had rendered them unsafe. Proper handling of runoff water from fields, and grading and vegetating road banks to minimize erosion, will do much to avoid this and to reduce road maintenance cost.
In any sound erosion control program a terracing system is considered complete only when the surplus terrace water may be safely conducted to a stabilized grade through a system of protected waterways. Water should be dumped into a road ditch only when no other outlet can be found and even then the road ditch should be protected from gullying by close growing vegetation or simple dams.
Several types of waterways are proving successful under field
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conditions. One method that i becoming increasingly popular is to lead the terraces to a natural "dra. ," or small valley, in the field. This draw i. eeded to a thick growing hay crop such a a mixture of gra ses and legume. For les er slope these meadow trips are working out splendidly. Terrace outlets on teeper lope and on large drainage area demand more protection because the large quantity of water di charged into such outlet flews \ ith great ero ive force. To prevent them from growing into gullie nder the cutting force of the concentrated water, these outlet hould be protected with ome t)'pe of "heavy duty" vegetation such as kudzu, or Bermuda gra which can withstand the force of the water and thus hold the ojl in place.
M D W STRIP
Broa,d mendow strips like this ne provide safe conduct for runoff water frol11 {crl"ace ends (0 stabilized areas such as woodland or pasture. Favorable moisture conditions promote the growth of erosion resisting vegetation to which such areas are planted. Instead of a gully, the farmcr:sefs a crop.of Ita,}'.
Vegetated waterways or meadow strips serve a double purpose. They conduct terrace water safel from cultivated field to stabilized areas uch as woods, pa ture , or stream and al 0 provide an addi.-ional source of hay or forage. Some of the meadow strips on soil conservation demonstra,ion areas are yielding the farmer from two to four tons of hay per acre each year.
Contour Tillage Contour cultivation is plowing at right angles to the slope and is an important part of the be t tarming practices. By the simple device
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of plowing and cultivating alound the hill approximately on the contour, instead of up and down the hill, each furrow, each harrow scratch becomes in effect a small dam or terrace.
In much of the Piedmont in the cotton countly, contour tillage is today an almost universally accepted farm practice, although this method of tillage is not perfectly adjusted to slopes on many farms. One may drive for miles in some parts of the Piedmont of the Carolinas, Georgia, and Alabama, where most of the soils are more or less erodible, without seeing a straight row of cotton or corn. Of necessity, farmers in these states have resorted to contour cultivation to save their soils, and all rows follow the approximate contour without regard to undulations of slope in the field.
Row crops on all sloping lands in the Piedmont should be grown on the contour. It is a simple farm practice, and saves labor, soil and water.
Can tour furrowing is a similar practice that checks erosion and conserves water in pastures. This practice is discussed under pasture improvement.
Suggested Study and References
Study some of the terraces on farms around the school. "Vhy do they always go around the hill? Are they big enough? Is the water at the end of each terrace taken care of so it will not cause serious erosion?
Farm Terracing.-U. S. Dept. of Agli., Farmers' Bulletin, 1669. Terracing for Soil and Water Conservation.-D. S. Dept. of Agri., Farmers' Bulletin, 1789. The Nichols Terrace.-U. S. Dept. of Agri., Farmers Bulletin, 1790.
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CHAPTER XI
VEGETATIVE EROSION CONTROL
From preceding chapters we have seen that vegetation will check erosion. We have studied such measures of erosion control as terracing, contour cultivation and vegetated waterways. These mechanical measures alone, however, are not enough to control erosion. We have only to take a lesson from nature to decide that vegetation is needed along with the mechanical measures. The placement of that vegetation in the field and the way it is fitted into the cropping system is also very important.
Crop Rotations
If we could devote all our land to growing trees and grass and other close growing crops that protect and hold the soil, erosion would not be a problem; but we must cultivate a large part of our land if we are to grow corn, cotton a:nd other clean cultivated row crops which the farmer as well as all the population must have. Since the farmer must grow clean cultivated crops and cannot grow close growing crops on all his land, the next best thing he can do is to rotate his crops so that he follows the clean cultivated crops with close growing crops that protect and improve the soil.
Results of a number of experiments over the South indicate that good crop rotations including legumes ate usually about as effective in maintaining and increasing soil fertility as adding normal amounts of manure and commercial fertilizer to the land. By properly rotating his crops the farmer, therefore, can not only check soil Erosion and conserve his soil but he can also improve his soil and increase the yields of the clean cultivated crops.
One of the simplest of crop rotations is the practice of planting some winter legume cover crop like vetch on cotton land during the fall after the cotton has been picked. If planted early and properly the cover crop will blanket the soil and protect it from erosion during the winter and early spring as well as produce a large tonnage of green fertilizer to tum under the following spring. In one series of tests at the Alabama Expe,iment Station, planting a winter covel crop of vetch
following cotton reduced soil and water loss from the test plots 50 per
cent. By growing cotton on land one year, following it with a winter
legume, then planting corn interplanted with a summer legume like cowpeas the next year, and shifting to a crop of small grain followed by lespedeza the third year, a farmer can have a very definite rotation.
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He may not need to grow all those crops and may want to grow others, but following the same idea of rotating the clean cultivated crops and the close growing crops he can check erosion and improve the soil.
By rotating those crops in strips across the field they can be'made till more effective in erosion control. Just as terraces check the flow of runoff water down a slope, strips of close growing crop on the contour break the flow of the water, hold more water and cau e it to oak into the oil and filter out, thereby catching much of the _oil that has been picked up by the water.
A E\ AGRIC LT RAL PATTER
Vegetative bulwarks against erosion can be seen in the broad contour strips of close growing CfOPS alternating with dean tilled areas in the cultivated fields. J\1.cchanical aids in soil and moisture con :';cl'vafion arc furnished hy contuur' pasture furrows in the foreground. and orchard trcC's planted on the
contour appeal' in the background.
Farmer in Soil Conservation Service erosion control demonstration area over Georgia and the outheast are clearly demonstrating the value of thi ystem of rotating crops in strips. The strips of close growing crops occupy from 25 to 0 per cent of the field area normally, and usually are about the same width as the distance between terraces. The strips are laid off on the contour or around the slope on about the level ju t like terrace. The trip that is planted in cotton this year will usually be rotated to some clo e growing crop the following year, and so on to carry out the rotation.
Rotating crops in strips acros the field means that all the land in the field will never be broken or loosened up and exposed to washing rains at one time. Close growing crops will be growing on every other
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strip at all times, not only improving those strips but protecting the remaindtr of the field by checking water that would rush onto it. Rotating crops in strips also allows a farmer to fit his rotations to his fields, while rotation of crops by whole fields makes it more difficult to get the needed acreage of each crop since the diffe_"ent fields on most farms vary so much in size.
Perennial Strip Cropping
On most sloping fields there are at least a few steep slopes or abrupt breaks in the lay of the land. Examine almost any farm and you will find fields that are gently rolling to almost level for some distance and then break off into steep, short slopes. These abrupt breaks or steep slopes in the more level fields are always the worst eroded parts of the fields. In the Piedmont section they usually are the bare spots or the red knolls in fields because the topsoil has been washed off and the redder subsoil is showing.
The best use to. which most of those so-called "critical areas" can be put is growing permanent vegetation. The vegetation will protect the soil and slowly build it back into productive land. Farmers in erosion control demonstration areas over the state are converting those steep slopes across their good fields to strips of permanent hay crops like kudzu and perennial lespedeza (Lespedeza sericea). Managed properly those crops will soon blanket the areas, and while protecting the land also provide returns in the form of hay which is needed on most Georgia farms.
This system of treating steep slopes across good fields is called perennial strip cropping. It differs from rotating crops in strips because in perennial strip cropping the close growing strips stay in the close growing crop permanently, or at least for a number of years continuously.
Pasture Improvement
Thousands of the poor pastures seen on the eroding hillsides throughout Georgia and the South can be transformed into good pastures that will provide cheap and nutritious vegetation for cattle, mules and other livestock and at the same time will protect the land from the erosive action of water. How can this be done? The answer is: by fertilizing, plowing, contour furrowing, seeding and sodding, controlled grazing, and weed elimination by regular mowing.
Rich land is needed for good pastures. The average hill soil in Georgia is not rich. The liberal application of phosphate fertilizers and the growing of legumes are needed to make the pasture lands rich
51

enough for a thick growth of good gra s. :\n application of lime may al 0 be needed to put the soil in condition to grow legume.
Many farmers in the soil conservation demonstration area of the state are applying these practices to their pastures. The steeper area which formerly were used for growing cotton and corn have been dedicated to grass. These new pasture areas have been plowed, contour furrowed, fertilized, and planted in grasses and legume mixture. The nitrogen gathering legumes help to enrich the soil. These plant, together with the grasse, form a prize team which produces an abundance of ucculent grazing and protect the oil from ero ion. One acre of improved pasture properly treated will produce more grazing than several acres of unimproved pa ture, and by including wintergrowing plants such as Italian rye gra l rimson clover and hop clover, and providing proper conditions for their grm th, the pa ture can be made to provide good grazing for a much longer time.
A GOOD P ST RE PROTECT THE OIL
A good pasture sod is an exce.llent agent of erosion control, as well a,s tile cheapest source of feec..l fur c,attle and other livestock. Poor pastures furnish neither protecti n for the soil nor adequnte gra'l.ing for livestock.
Even where there is a good sod of grass on upland pastures, considerable rain water i lost through runoff. Ol1tour furrowing i a relatively new practice which farmer in the outh are using to check this 10 s. These furrows normally are hallow, flat-bottomed depressions constructed by throwing soil out in both directions. The furrows normally are placed about five feet apart over the pa ture, and should be built in such a way a not to interfere with mowing the
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pasture. These furrows hold rain water for the soil to store for later dry periods when the grass needs jt, as well as serve as devices to catch seed and manure that would otherwise wash off.
Rainfall in the Southeast averages approximately 50 inches a year.
This would be ample moisture if it were evenly distributed throughout the year or if otherwise fully utilized. Unfortunately, much of the water is lost through runoff during seasons of heavy rain and consequently is not available for use by pasture plants during the hot summer months when periods of drought frequently occur. Contour furrows properly constructed tend to minimize this condition. Water standing in the contour furrows has a much better chance of being absorbed by the soil than water running rapidly down the slope. This fact is borne out by observation and also by penetration tests which indicate that water penetrates several times as deep in the furrows as in the interval between. Naturally the closer the furrows are spaced, the more effective they will be in conserving moisture. Likewise since increased plant growth is usually found closely bordering the furrows, closer spacing of furrpws results in a better stand of vegetation.
Contour furrOWIng constitutes an important part of a pasture improvement and soil conservation program. Thousands of miles of these furrows have been constructed in pastures in erosion control
demonstration areas throughout the South in recent years. In numer-
ous instances these impediments to runoff water have held almost all of even heavy rainfalls. The water remains in the furrows and slowly sinks into the ground, much of it remaining there and supplying the plants with moisture through periods of low moisture supply.
Suggested Study and References
"Resolved, That grass and trees and close growing crops are more important in controlling soil erosion than terraces," would be a good question for the class to debate.
Soil Dejense in the Piedmont.-U. S. Dept. Agri., Farmers' Bulletin, 17 67.
Soil Productivity as Effected by Crop Rotation.-U. S. Dept. Agri., Farmers' Bulletin, 1475.
Strip Cropping jor Soil Conservation.-U. S. Dept. Agri., Farmers' Bulletin, 1776.
Heavy Duty Vegetation jor Erosion Control.-Soil Conservation, August, 1937.
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CHAPTER XII
MODERN PIONEERS
Young men and women as they start out in life today face a far different Georgia and must tackle problems far different from those their forefathers had to meet and conquer.
Visualize again, if you will, the country Oglethorpe and his followers found when they settled in Georgia. They had a wilderness to face, many obstacles to meet, a nation to build.
While we honor our forefathers for their heroic efforts in settling and developing this country, we now realize that they gave little thought to conservation of the rich soil and other natural resources that then seemed so plentiful. We should not criticize them too severely, however. Amid a wilderness of trees, as they moved westward, they could see seemingly unending expanses of new land. Theirs was the job of conquering the wilderness and in a relatively short time they have built for us the greatest nation on earth.
We cannot overlook the fact, however, that they have robbed millions of acres of our land of its trees and its protective cover of grass, and carelessly let much of it wash away. Most of us know that our rivers and streams steadily run muddy with soil, that our reservoirs are filling up, and that Hoods are more and more menacing because we have destroyed the trees and grass on the hills that catch heavy rains and prevent heavy runoff. When to this we add the fact that we have only a few inches of topsoil left on our farm lands and that this is the soil going down the rivers, we can realize the serious conservation problem we of this generation face.
The unfortunate part of the story is that although pioneer conditions long since have passed, too frequently we are still following the same old destructive pioneer methods. Every acre of land being destroyed by exploitive methods today means just one acre less upon which the children of the future may rely. Such wasteful methods of land use cannot continue if this nation of ours is to survive.
In the early days of our country, it was permissible, yes necessary, that the trees be cleared from the sloping areas and the land brought into cultivation. Otherwise we could not have developed a great nation. Many farmers of the present generation, however, continue the wasteful practices begun by their foreparents. \Ve see every year areas brought under cultivation which the owners, if they stopped to think, would realize were too steep to cultivate. Possibly they do understand this but feel that they are forced by economic conditions to
54

clear such steep land and hope to get a few favorable crops from it before it washes away.
With what pride the stalwart young couple of pioneer days must have viewed the one-room log cabin in which they were going to start out in life 1 It was their home, their castle, and the hardships which they encountered as they hewed it out of the wilderness must have made them love it more.
A Different Frontier
That was their frontier. The young man and woman of today, starting out in life, face an entirely different frontier. There are no new and undeveloped lands to the vVest to claim and conquer, no new farms to move on to when the old home farm is worn out.
America, one of the youngest of countries, without a doubt stands as the greatest of nations in many respects. The one sad part about this rapid development is that we as a people have exploited our natural resources, slashed off the protective cover of trees, uprooted grass from our soils and left the l:and bare and devastated at a rate undreamed of in other countries. Naturally we can expect the day of reckoning sooner than other countries that have developed their lands more slowly.
We have only to read history to find many areas where ancient civilizations once reveled in an age of prosperity but which today are facing famine, with buildings crumbling in ruins or buried beneath desert sands, at least partly because the people of those countries failed to recognize their dependence upon the land and the necessity for protecting and conserving the life-giving resources of the soil.
The pioneers who settled the South loved their section of the country, developed it, fought for it. They developed an economy in the South that looks to the soil for existence, and they have handed down to succeeding generations a love for the land. While they have handed down many worn-out farms and gullied, washed away hillsides, they have also handed down many experiences that will help the present generation save and reclaim those washed away slopes.
Further opportunity for Georgia and the South to hold and improve its soil is being presented by the better knowledge of sound land use and practical erosion control practices being developed through study of soil and water conservation. Preceding chapters clearly show the cause of soil erosion and land wastage as well as practices that will check erosion, conserve and improve the soil.
Passage by the Georgia Legislature, in 1937, of a soil conservation districts law, which provides for farmers to organize themselves in
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:ricts and fight erosion co-operatively, offers added opportumtles. lUmber of districts have been organized and are operating under that
Our forefathers conquered the wilderness, their frontier, with axe, ~t[n and hoe. 'Yhile those were necessary implements, they were destructive implements. To the modern pioneers of today falls the task of conserving and reclaiming the land with constructive implements and practices~grass, trees, sound land use, terraces, vegetated waterways, crop rotations, strip cropping and the like. That is a job for modern pioneers, and it is just as great or a greater job than our pioneer forefathers faced.
Suggested Study and References 'Yhat are the major things this generation will have to do if it is to do as good a job conserving the lanel for continued prosperity and future generations as our forefathers did in developing the country? A review of this bulletin and further references will suggest several things. A film strip, wErosion Control in the Southeast", which can be obtained from the Cnited States Department of Agriculture, \Vashington,
D. c., for about fifty cents, or less, will help picture these things more
clearly. The Georgia Soil Conservation Districts Law.~Ge:orgia Statutes, 1937 Soil Conservation Districts for Erosion C()ntrol.~U. S Dept. Agri.,
Mise. Pub., 293.
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