Much Work Reported Done On Soil ! Conserving In This Area Desipte the shortage of cquip-i cquip-i ment and labor approximately , SL'2.500 has been spent during the past six months on soil conservation conserva-tion practices by the Hurricane, LaVerkin, Ash Creek and Lower Virgin-Santa Clara Soil Conservation Conserva-tion districts. This is an average expenditure of approximately ?125 daily during this period. The districts are legal subdivisions subdivi-sions of the state and were organized organ-ized back in 1938 and 1939 by local lo-cal interested farmers. At that time much of the soil conservation conserva-tion work was accomplished by j means of CCC labor and equip-' equip-' ment. Since 1942 all labor and i equipment has been handled by the local districts through a lend- lease program with the Soil Conservation Con-servation Service, or direct purchase pur-chase of equipment by the districts. At the present time much work is being accomplished, with both heavy and light equipment, toward to-ward halting erosion and controll-j controll-j ing floods. During the past six j months the districts have had at I various times the following equipment: equip-ment: 38 yd. dragline, cement mixer, grain drill, water pump, dump truck, D-7 tractor and dozer, doz-er, tractor and carryall, 35 h.p. tractor, Eversman leveler and Miskin scraper. Private equipment consisting of small farm tractors, TD-6 tractor, cement mixers, Ford tractor and Overland scraper, and TD-18 tractor, have accomplished many dollars worth of good sound soil conservation practices during this period. The cost as a rule to farmers has been small in comparison com-parison to the advantages gained in preventing or lessening soil erosion, reduction in the amount and better use of irrigation water, lower labor costs and better crops that are a result of such practices. prac-tices. All of the necessary technical assistance for this work has been supplied without cost by the United States Soil Conservation Service. The districts have received 533 applications to date and 383 farmer district agreements plus 35 group facility agreements have (Continued on page eight) Soil Conservation (Continued from first page) been signed! There are 74,486 acres of land under agreement out of a total of 153,840 acres of privately pri-vately owned lands within the districts. Many canal companies have been concrete lining their canals through areas of heavy losses and intend to concrete all their canal system in the next few years. Concrete lining of canals is also ' gaining in importance with individual indi-vidual farmers and many coop-erators coop-erators planning on lining their head ditches to prevent loss of water and save labor in the cleaning of these ditches and irrigation irri-gation application. Under agreement are the following fol-lowing types of work proposed and completed: Pro- Corn-Practice Corn-Practice posed pleted (acres) (acres) Contour planting 4751 2918 Cover crops 301 195 Green manure crops 2678 2082 g: Imp methods of irri. water application 3681 2406 Land leveling 1313 : (each) (each) ' Small irrigation structures - 1500 795 (lin.ft) (linft) ' T Soil saving dikes ....60980 33525 (acres) (acres) ;: Seeding irrigation - pasture 358 219 Seed'g range pasture 3575 1412 (each) (each) : Overrate stor'g ponds 36 29 re Stock water devel 41 35 : .. (acres) (acres) ' Reorg. of fields .. 88 29 i : I Range property - stocked '. 52721 1SSC4 (lin.ft) (lirJt) ' c- Canal lining (concrete) 30050 7323 Individ, farm drains 1S50 650 1 v- Canal construction 25700 2CS30 ' I (acres) (acres) L'; Crop rotation 3586 3353 V: Rodent control 7SS8 25S3 , ? ! Drainage 1900 160 ' -