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Show STUDIES OF SOIL -EROSION LOSSES MADE BY STATES A measure of the nationwide terest in controlling soil erosion tea water runoff Is found in theTSieifr-report theTSieifr-report of the United States Department Depart-ment of Agriculture on the work of the state experiment stations. Witli the annual loss from soil erosion estimated es-timated at not less than $400,000,000, the department in co-operation with . experiment stations and other state agencies, Is attacking the problem along two lines. T Research as to the best waystoy control erosion is being carried on in all parts of the United States. Control measures thus discovered are put to Immediate use by Civilian Conservation corps boys who. In more than a dozen states are planting plant-ing trees and other soil blndi" crops, building terraces and building' dams to control flood water. Erosion studies at the Alabama and Texas stations show that terraces, ter-races, while necessary on all cultivated culti-vated land subject to erosion, are not alone sufficient to prevent losmi of soil between terraces. FertlSs soil and needed water are lost by sheet erosion and run off. These stations have shown that this loss can be reduced by strips-f caver . crops supplementing the terraces. The Iowa station has shown by extensive ex-tensive tests that many farms are bCj ing washed away at the rate of 1 foot every 50 years. When corn Is grown continuously, the loss takes place at about 1 foot every 36 years. When corn rows run across the slope, the losses are cut in half. Losses from land In alfalfa, clover, and blu-grass blu-grass are very small. When sweet clover was plowed under soil and water losses were strikingly reduced. From the Far West the Washington Washing-ton station reports results of studies on soil representative of large areas in eastern Washington. Winter whjt yielded only one-tenth or one-half53 many bushels per acre on .land which had lost Its topsoil because of erosion. ero-sion. Yields of springwheatwera even less favorable. Here tooTUwas proven that vegetation, whether of grasses, legumes, or even grain stubble, stub-ble, went a long way toward cofe, trolling soil and water losses. s |
