Show r MILLION LOSS IN SOIL YEARLY cost in 1937 may reach 50 billion chief warns washington D C the united states is squandering its soil re sources at the rate of more than a year according to H H bennett chief of the soil con service of the department ep artmen of agriculture bennett who has been crusading for ten years for soil co estimated acres of agn agri cultural land already has been ruined or seriously impoverished by erosion during the past years erosion has gained headway on an other acres he said millions of gullied farms washed bare of top soil are grim evidence that the people of this youthful na tion have been squandering their rich heritage of productive oil more rapidly than any other nation civilized or barbaric of which we have any record bennett said more fertilizer required the nations soil plant is becom ing less and less productive because of wind and water erosion bennett said fertilizer must be used in ever increasing quantities he said this had added considerably to the cost of crops unless we make rapid advance against the inroads of soil erosion the cumulative cost to the nation during the next fifty years is likely to exceed 20 and may easily extend to beyond 30 bennett said he recalled a recent tour of the southern piedmont where he crossed a country embracing acres two thirds of which was ruined for further cultivation by erosion gullies tens of thousands of them have hideously slashed the bosom of the rich earth laying waste the land and with it the fine old plantation homes that former ly graced the countryside and most of all impoverishing socially and economically those who have known no way to live except by the beneficence benefi cense of the land bennett said work of ages whisked away nature takes thousands of years to build an inch thick layer of soil bennett said if nature s protection for that soil grass and trees are removed wind and ram rain may sweep seep away in a few hors the work of centuries it is somewhat alarming to re alize that over a vast area nature is removing this irreplaceable as set soil a hundred or a thousand times faster than she is creating it simply because we have ignored her fundamental law erosion in the geological sense is older than man even under primeval conditions ram rain and wind gnawed away the soil base washing some topsoil down to the sea or scattering a little of it here and there by wind but probably no nation in his tory has been so wasteful of soil or so oblivious to the natural laws gov arning its ct ability as the united states there are many reasons for this N only a little while ago this wa was s a pioneer country exuberant im patient and overoptimistic over optimistic about the inexhaustibility of its natural alre re sources it was perhaps inevitable that our ancestors should mine the soil with little thought of future con sequences in their ea gernes gernese to grow crops and still more crops to feed the hungry mouths of an expanding in du dustral civilization they cut down trees and burned the underbrush they turned the sod and plowed the steep slopes stripping the land of its native mantle of vegetation leaving it unprotected against the erosive forces of wind and water |