Soil Conservation For Sustainable Agriculture
In fifteen decades, Americans have transformed a wilderness into a mighty nation. In all the history of the world, no people ever built so fast and yet so well. This will be a land of liberty, they said in the beginning, and as they hacked the forest, drove their ploughshares deep into the earth, and spread their herds across the ranges, they sang of the land of the free that they were making. All that they finally built upon this continent is founded in that faith-that here there would be opportunity and independence and security for any man.
Those things are the power and the hope of this democracy. And they have sprung, very largely, from the goodness of our land, its capacity to produce rewardingly. Yet- with astonishing improvidence, Americans have plundered the resource that made it possible to realize their dream.
Moving across this country in the greatest march of occupation ever known, they have exploited and abused this soil. As a result, our vital land supply has been steadily sapped by the heavy drain of soil erosion.
Since the first crude plow uprooted the first square foot of sod, and once mans axe first" bit into-virgin forest, erosion of the soil has been a problem. It is as old as history. Down through the ages it has influenced the lives of men and the destinies of nations and civilizations. In the united States today, no problem is more urgent
Millions of acres of our land regrind, other millions of acres already have been harmed. And not more soils going down the slopes, down the down to the wastes of the oceans. Opportunity, security, the chance for a man to make a living from the land-these are going too. It is to preserve them-to sustain a rewarding rural life as a bulwark of this nation, that we must defend the soil.
This nation is still producing bountiful crops. But many thousands of farmers already feel the pinch of erosion. Tens of thousands of them are finding it increasingly difficult to eke out a living on eroded land almost regardless of agricultural prices.
In other words, even in this young nation, pressure on the land already has come acute in many localities. Many areas have been damaged to such an extent by erosion that not enough productive soil is left for the present population. In Puerto Redo, portions of the Southern Piedmont, and the Rio Grande Valley, for example, erosion already has crowded many people off the land and brought others to the level of precarious subsistence farming. Some of this land can be stabilized, and some severely impoverished areas can be improved, but many land users must seek better soil elsewhere if they are to remain in the business of farming or ranching. Today the nation has an abundance of land, but not enough good land. Probably, if there had not been so much good land in the beginning, there would not have developed the early idea that the productive soil of America was limitless and inexhaustible. This erroneous appraisal of the land resource, passed along as a tradition, accounts for much of our costly steep-land tillage, overgrazing, and failure to defend vulnerable soil from the ravage of erosion.
The present plight of the land brings to mind the extremes to which other countries with small areas of arable soil must go in order to make maximum use of every available acre. In southern France, for example, certain poor soils are utilized under a rotation of fish culture with grain production. In Italy, under the program of the Boniface Integrate, many areas of severely gullied steep slopes are being smoothed down with explosives in order to reclaim them for agricultural use. Always, where populations have increased and agricultural lands have been exploited and wasted, people have looked beyond their borders for additional land. This urge has brought about conquests, wars, and migrations to new lands. Permanent agriculture has been achieved in only a few regions, for the most part of relatively small size, throughout the world. Some parts of the world, blessed with gentle rains, favorable soil, moderate slopes, native skills, and inherent love for the soil, have been held securely. Elsewhere-in Peru, Guatemala, Mexico, the Philippine Islands, parts of Europe, and China-people of primitive culture in ancient civilizations, bench-terraced and, in some instances, irrigated steeply sloping land. The investment of human labor in such enterprises reached fabulous proportions: about $18,000 or more an acre, on the basis of present costs for human labor, went into the walled terraces and irrigation works of the Incas in the Andes Mountains.
Bennett HH
555
Table of Contents..
Part I: Soil Erosion
- The Problem in the United States
- Erosion and Civilization
- Results of Erosion
- Processes and Types of Erosion
- Rates or erosion and Runoff
- Relation of Physical and Chemical Properties of Soils to the Erosion Problem
- Climate and Soil Erosion
- Infiltration in Relation to Runoff: The Erosion Process and the Utilization of Rainfall
- Relation of Erosion to Crop Yields
- Relation of Erosion to Vegetative Changes
- Sedimentation
- Mass Movement An Important Process of Soil Wastage
- Geology and Soil Erosion
- Relation of Entomology to Erosion
Part 2: Soil Conservation
- A National Program of Soil Conservation
- Agronomic Practices in Soil and Water Conservation
- Farm and Range Plants Useful for Erosion Control and Water Conservation
- The Place of Forestry in Soil and Water Conservation
- Contouring
- Terracing
- Runoff-Disposal Channel Ways and Outlets
- Subsoiling and Other Subsurface Tillage Operations
- Gully Prevention and Control
- Control of Erosion on Highways
- Small Dams for Water Storage
- Erosion of Stream Banks
- Water Spreading
- Wildlife and Soil Conservation
- Soil Conservation and Flood Control
- Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain Region
- Southern Appalachian Region
- Northern Appalachian and New England Area
- Central Prairie and Eastern Timbered Border Region
- Ozark Highlands
- The Great Plains
- Edwards Plateau - Fort Worth Prairie - Cross Timbers Area
- Colorado River Region
- Pacific Northwest Region
- Pacific Southwest Region
- Early Efforts Toward Erosion Control
- Erosion Problems in Foreign Countries
- Research: An Arm of Coordinated Land Use
- Soil Conservation Surveys
- Index
Table of Contents..
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Book Details
Book Title:
Soil Conservation For Sustainable Agriculture
Soil Conservation For Sustainable Agriculture
Book Type:
TEXT-CUM-REFERENCES BOOK
TEXT-CUM-REFERENCES BOOK
No Of Pages:
1012
1012
Color Pages :
0
0
Color Pages :
0
0
Book Size:
AMERICAN ROYAL (6X9)
AMERICAN ROYAL (6X9)
Weight:
1400 Gms
1400 Gms
Copyright Holder:
All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved
Imprint:
M/s AGROBIOS (INDIA)
M/s AGROBIOS (INDIA)
Readership:
FIELD WORKERS | PG STUDENTS | SCIENTISTS AND RESEARCHERS | UG STUDENTS |
FIELD WORKERS | PG STUDENTS | SCIENTISTS AND RESEARCHERS | UG STUDENTS |
Associated Subjects:
Agronomy , Crop Ecology And Environment , Gardening , Horticulture , Natural Resources Management , Soil Science , Sustainable Agriculture ,
Agronomy , Crop Ecology And Environment , Gardening , Horticulture , Natural Resources Management , Soil Science , Sustainable Agriculture ,