| OCR Text |
Show K0TSIE sffiji IN WASHINGTON Pessimism Prevails THE month of August marked the 10th anniversary anniver-sary of the soil conservation program. During this decade more than 1,900 conservation districts have been organized by farmers throughout the 48 states for the purpose of conservation practices on more than 190 million acres of farm land. Despite these practices, the drain on soil fertility as a result of overproduction over-production of crops during th war years and of natural causes finds American farms in worse shape generally than before the war. Soil conservation experts In the department of agriculture and In the local district committees com-mittees throughout the country are pessimistio over the reduction reduc-tion of approximately 86 million dollars in payments to farmers from the soil conservation service serv-ice for 1948 as compared to 1947. The reduced appropriations appropria-tions made by congress not only " will cut payments to farmers but also will cause the lay-off of some 1,100 employees in the soil conservation service. So at a time when the farmer and the soil conservationist should be thinking and practicing more soil conservation the agriculture department depart-ment must necessarily retrench because be-cause of the sapping of the program by congress. |
