OCR Text |
Show Soil Conservation r Publication ' Now Available "Soils and Security," a new 11-lusijated. 11-lusijated. booklet writer, by ' rr. H. H. Bennett, Chief of the: soil Conservation Service, has . been released and Is available to all persons interested in the .rapidly growing conservation ' movement, SCS officials reported here. Painting out that about 14 percent per-cent of the land about 280 million mil-lion acres have been essentially ruined by soil erosion and another 35 percent of the land damaged, the publication places the annual cost of soil erosion in the United States at not less than $844,00 000. Of particular interest to the Southwest, where the farming industry in-dustry depends primarily upon storage of irrigation water, is the statement that unless present rates of sedimentation are reduced, 38 percent of the existing 8,400 dams and reservoirs in the United States will have a useful life of 50 years or less. Techniques of erosion control and tlie results of soil conservation efforts ef-forts in recent years are described. describ-ed. The new movement of locally local-ly buided soil conservation districts is growing rapidly and by 1950, at the present rate, about 367 million acres of farm and range land in the country will be included in these conservation cooperatives, Dr. Bennett estimates. Copies of the booklet may be obtained ob-tained free from the U. S. Department Depart-ment of agriculture, Washington, D. C. or from local USDA representatives. |