Show millions of acres ruined by wind erosion of forestry at syracuse university but it 19 a process aba t mill take many decades to prof S 0 heiberg says that 10 per cent oil I 1 I 1 I 1 iva I 1 k I 1 N M A om 4 ME by WILLIAM UTLEY Y fr t WS HIS buffalo grass should never be plowed theland the land will just dry up and the wind will blow it away and you with it what the cattlemen of southern colorado told the homesteaders ste aders CO years ago the homesteaders ste aders plowed the buffalo grass today the wind has blown away the land and many have been forced to move had the farmers of the great plains of kansas nebraska oklahoma texas arkansas and nebraska cultivated their lands with a little more foresight in the years gone by they would not today perhaps have been forced to watch the great red and yellow plague of soil erosion blow their farms from the face of the earth or more literally blow the face of the earth from their farms which Is the same thing during the world war wheat prices soared sky high short grass prairies were the only virgin soil which remained tor for wheat production and to these plains rushed thousands of farmers with their plows the harvest was rich indeed with several seasons reasons of good rainfall then came years of drouth with them was the return to something like normal and less in wheat prices what land was not abandoned was farmed only in a haphazard manner wheat acreage was further decreased 15 per cent by the administrations wheat allotment program production ceased on much of this land the remainder got very little attention probably this was the land where the recent dust storms first began to get body with this power of aggravation it was an easy matter for the dust laden winds to collect more and more of their devastating burden from the land in western kansas N which aich Is handled by nonresident farmers who hogin hog in their crop by the cut and cover method of far fa aning which coders large territories ri quickly but so poorly that the topsoil blows easily and when it starts to blow no one Is there to stop it dust travels far from this start the storms which during durig march raged at terrific heights for from four to twelve days spread through neighboring states huge cloud palls of white yellow and red black dust reached as far as denver st SL louis cleveland and even washington in a weird reversal of the back to the soil movement that struck the more unfortunate element of metropolitan ro populations a little while back in the stricken great plains area highway y traffic was stopped to prevent accident schools and business houses shut their doors health officers warned everyone to stay at home it if possible railway traffic was stilled several children and adults died of dust pneumonia live stock refused to eat grass and hay even when they could find it under the drifts of eroded soil that were so BO high in many places that one could walk up a drift to the root roof of a tall barn even in the cities it was necessary to sleep and often work with wet cloths claths tied over nose and mouth in chicago and central illinois the dust united with showers of rain and the weather man said to the inhabitants heres mud in your eyel they soon found out he meant it only too literally the great storm of may 11 1034 which stretched from montana to the atlantic and hung a ton cover of dust over the national capital was something of a calamity the storm of march 1935 was a major catastrophe fertile areas once garden spots became as the dust clouds gained momentum like barren deserts good farmers as well as bad were driven from their land and their homes knowing not whither to turn now the government Is beginning to wale wake to a full realization of the seriousness of the problem of erosion fiat fifty y million acres of crop pro land have been destroyed in the united states by wind and water soil erosion another acres have lost the topsoil top soll and additional acres are approaching this condition according to the department of agriculture ri A total of 75 per cent of all the farm land used tor for clean tilled crops Is subject to erosion and damage which the department estimates at a year causes heavy loss the tons of soli soil lost every year through erosion would fill all a train of freight cars that would tr ME t 21 up rj M A T A top ranch in colorado piled high with dust below left dr R rexford ex f ard tugwell in charge of erosion control right city folks also have H ave their battle with dust encircle the world 37 times at the equator says R E uhland of the united states soil erosion service lie ile pointed out that figures of loss do not take into account the damage done to highways railways reservoirs ervo irs streams ditches and harbors lie he said that northern mis 1119 souris CO 50 per cent loss of fertile top surface soil represents more than fio per cent fertility wastage because in the top four or five inches of tile the original soil was concentrated a very large part of the readily available plant nutrients he declared that the soil Is lost as surely as if it were burned in a fire unless immediate steps are taken and this rapid destruction Is stopped by said mr bir U uhland 11 1 missouri will have to produce the major portion of her crops on one fifth of the land now on crops the missouri condition Is of course typical of the whole stricken area tile the work of erosion control before the latest tragedy was spread among the department of agriculture the department of the interior and the civilian conservation corps to meet the present crisis all erosion control has been placed under the department of agriculture with rexford guy tugwell tu 9 undersecretary supervising the work he will unify the efforts of the interior department soil erosion control the AAA the forest service the bureau of chemistry and soils and the bureau of ag agricultural ri cultural engineering one million dollars was the amount agreed upon for doctor tug wells crews to begin work after a visit to washington of gov Go alfred vAlfred M landon of kansas to plead for funds for the project the FERA expressed willingness for its workers to be turned over to the job the work will be extended over th the e states badly affected weapons of war chief weapons in the war against wind erosion will be Ill listing sting 11 and plowing methods metho ds which have worked on out t satisfactorily in the besas panhandle demonstration center of the soil erosion service farmers and the states themselves will furnish the fleet of tractors necessary tor for the job listing consists of plowing deep furrows across fields at right angles to prevailing winds in affected areas tills this tends to break the force of the wind and cause it to drop dust that it Is carrying this la Is governor lon lan dons favored method I 1 nebraska urges its farmers to plant soil rotating crops and grasses texas would plant sorghum which retains soil and moisture it Is advisable to use machines which do not pulverize the soil but develop a cloddy and roughened surface the soil should be cultivated at the proper time to conserve what moisture it contains machinery used should be of the kind that will incorporate stubble and other plant residues in the surface soil the fort hays ran kan agricultural agricultural experiment station advises the re planting of all eroded land which was once grazing country with buffalo grass and has perfected a method for the re planting in an attempt to learn the true origin of dust storms and try to put an end to them the federal government has begun a soil erosion project at huron S D in addition there are acres of land in south dakota where the soll soil erosion service will try to build a barrier to wind erosion and build up the soil by terracing strip cropping counter cultivation and moisture cultivation projects are also under way in nearly every part of the country to defeat gully erosion that caused by the washing of storm waters which has destroyed acres of good farm land an interesting step in this direction was a law passed in wisconsin in late march which exempts fenced wooded slopes from taxation one hundred mile barrier wind removed the topsoil of the great plains and air coupled with sunshine will replace it it if the right vegetation Is planted according ing to the new york state college the topsoil Is decayed plant matter the other 90 00 per cent Is actual air and sunshine converted into loam carbon extracted from the air by plants in breathing carbon dioxide into sugars and st starches which remain there joining the combat against wind erosion the forest service will set up a shelter belt of trees to stretch from north dakota to the texas panhandle this forest barrier miles wide and more than 1500 miles long iong following roughly the line of IS 13 inches rainfall Is intended to restore th the e water level improve living conditions within the belt act as a snow fence and hold windblown wind blown dust dusl during the next nest ten years the forest service will plant trees in hundreds of narrow strips each a hundred feet wide and a mile apart only the trees suitable to the climate will be chosen and there will be gaps in the ranks where the soil Is too poor to justify planting the recent dust storms and the terrible havoc in their wake are by no means peculiar to america says the national geographic society the same thing has happened in syria palestine and north africa experts say that such regions where the rainfall Is less than 25 inches a year should be left to live stock and not cultivated darwin reported that in south america during the seasons of 1827 1830 4 so much dust was blown about that boundaries were obscured and property rights confused in october 28 chocolate dust from australia stained the snow peaks of new zealand 1500 miles away in the spring of the same year some tons of earth from the ukraine were scattered over europe blame the sahara the sahara Is the source of supply for most of the european dust storms hot sirocco IN winds carry the dust over the mediterranean and northward as far as the baltic china Is famed for dust storms in winter they sweep over ocer the north china plain covering trees houses bor uses crops and people with yellow sediment dust storms of another age built the loe loess ss highlands that lie ile between the north china plain and the deserts of central asia this fertile yellow earth often reaching a depth of feet covers thousands of square miles in the northern provinces crops may be raised on loess without fertilizing utilizing til izing wind renews the soil as the nile does in egypt the fine yellow silt has a tendency to split in a vertical direction far furrowing rowing the region with steep cliffs and canyons the natives often carve cave dwellings in these CUDS cliffs climbing to tile the roofs of their homes to plow their fields to look at them coldly such dust storms as we have had may be blessings in disguise according to J C mehler secretary of the kansas board of agriculture they will be says he it if they lead farmers to adopt diversified farming turning much of the land back to grazing they will also prove beneficial in inaugurating tillage methods which will cut down the loss from soil blowing relief from the terrible droutha which have helped to make powder of the soil in recent seasons Is promised by john B kincer head bead of the climate and crop weather service of the united states weather bureau kincer who does not believe in definite changes in climate but rather in definite cycles cycle of rainfall variations holds to th the e view that the united states has been in the descending curse of a moisture cycle for the last 25 years an Illum illuminating biatIng sidelight on city folks appreciation of the rigors of the dust storms was revealed to the writer while dining recently in a metropolitan restaurant I 1 complained to ray my waitress that the spinach was gritty thank the saints are eaten batin it here she replied in herbest hibernian brogue Ill chwat wat it if were eathil it out in Kan kansas sast 1 0 western newspaper unload |