Show soil conservation district explained is the first of a series of K stickles Sti 1 nicles cles which will explain the org organization n and functions of the san juan soil conservation district and how it works with the soil conservation service this weeks article art 1 ale will deal with the importance of soil to man and the creation of a soil conservation service many of the subscribers of the san juan record have been reading articles in recent issues which describe the benefits of different conservation practices such as irrigation improvements range management and contour planting all of these articles have mentioned the soil conservation service and have also mentioned the san 9 an juan soil conservation dis byl it is doubtful if many of l O readers fully understand the meaning of those two names first we will describe to you just what the soil conservation service is and why it was organized by the congress and then we will describe the organization of your own soil C conservation on district the soil conservation service was first organized organize J by congress in 1935 for the purpose of creating a nationwide nation wide movement toward the conservation of our most important natural resource the soil along with the development of modern civilization there has been a definite movement alway from the soil and a consequent loss of appreciation of the value of the soil to human progress at one time 90 per cent of us americans were farmers at the present time only 15 per cent of u us s are f farmers rm man has a definite definis te kins kinship haa to the soil mans habitat is the surface of the earth the material matei ial part of him is made up of a few pennies worth of chemicals which come from the thin surface of the earth called soil his body materials come from the soil and he goes back to the soil in death r g lauring during his lifetime the soil erkins er Fins lins his body it sustains it through ugh food clothing shelter and modern gadgets which make life comfortable all of those things come from the soil because so much of america is covered with a layer of good fertile soil and because we are a young nation we have never been continued on page 4 SOIL conservation continued from page 1 forced through privation to learn that soil is a limited resource As H H bennett chief of the soil CL conservation service has so aptly put it americans as a people have never le learned arned to love the land and regard it as an enduring resource they have seen it only as a field for exploitation and a source of immediate financial return they have been changed by modern civilization to conceive of production and wealth in terms of men and machines alone f forgetting theland the land nevertheless the existence of humanity today rests rei on the same foundation that it did centuries ago on the soil and its productivity ancient civilizations have disappeared because the people consistently exploited the land we in america do not want that to happen to us but it can happen we see new horizons and use them to our advantage which usually brings exploitation when we produce food from the soil we are transferring transi erring minerals from the soil to our blood streams whether it be in the form of a radish or a beefsteak certain elements are mined f from rom the soil by plants through a process likened to the mining of oil and coal however at this point we are blessed with a great opportunity we cannot replace the oil and the coal we have mined we have to find substitutes when they are gone but nature by a slow and tedious process will replace the elements removed from the soil by plant life providing we develop enough interest in the land to continued on page 6 SOIL conservation continued from bage dago 4 give nature a helping hand when nature had her own way she saw to it that the elements were returned to the soil in a manner in keeping with the demands of plant ind and animal life but as civilization accelerated its speed mans demands become became greater than mother natures ability to replace and the apple cart has ahas been upset this upset apple cart in the U united states has resulted in some figures on erosion that are indeed staggering the term erosion is a broc term 11 and nd should perhaps be explained pla ined too think of id erosion as a gully A gully is merely one of the results of many types of erosion erosion in general consists of wearing away of the soil we will disregard natural geological erosion which is common in southeastern utah in ithe the form of canyons natural bridges and sandstone walls we will define erosion as being a wearing away of the soil by human practices es at a rate faster than it is replaced by nature to simplify it further we will say that erosion is is d divided into two broad classes vertical and lateral vertical erosion is the leaching of soluble lile soil nutrients out of the top soil and into the substratum this occurs in humid areas and orf on irrigated farms it occurs particularly in our sandy irrigated soils irrigation tion waters when applied in excessive amounts amounts over too long a period seep do down wn through the loose sand at a rapid rate sandy soil has a low water holding ca lacity and as a result the water has a washing effect taking with it down into the deeper ground much of the minerals which would otherwise be stored in the topsoil top soil and used for plant food the water usually carries these minerals far ar too deep for the deac reach of plant roots thereby taking malting the soil less productive A man might have a serious erosion problem on his farm and not know that it exists though he may wonder why his crops arent up to par lateral erosion is the result of blowing or washing away the soluble nutrients and the insoluble soil particles such as fine sand silt and particularly the clay particles the clay particles are the mo most st im important of so soil il particles all of the soil mineral activity is concentrated around the minute clay particles each particle acting as a nucleus for chern cherincal cal action the mineral activity of the soil is lost loit when the particles of clay are washed into lake meade or int into 0 gullies or blown to distant p places I 1 aces the congress of the united states was called on by the people to do something about the threat to our soil resources the congress acted by creating the soil conservation service the word service means just what it implies however it is difficult to try to make a red blooded american farmer mend his ways if he is exploiting his soil the difficulty is that we are inherent exploiters and we may be exploiting a piece pie e of our land without knowing it if father farmed a piece of land laid a certain way and got good cras crops why cant little johnny do it the same way and why he the reason johnny cant do it the same way is because father unknowingly exploited his soil he worked hard and itna turned out good crops but he DID NOT HELP NATURE REPLACE THOSE SOU MINERALS which are necessary for plant growth therefore johnny have as good a soil to produce his crops as his father hai bad and must farm f arm harder to bring his soil back to where it was when father worked it soil is actually a living organism it is full of chemical and bac aerial activity those chemicals and bacterial activities can exist only in that portion of the ground which we call top soil the grade school chemist knows that most natural chemical reactions are boosted by the presence of oxygen he also knows that beneficial bacteria cannot live and be active without the presence of oxygen soil with good and resultant good chemical and bacterial life is soil which can breathe properly this occurs only in the top few inches the chemical and bacterial processes of decomposition do not occur overnight for some necessary plant foods to be created this process must continue for years and years the removal of a little top soil only a very little bit or the leaching by the use of too much irrigation water results in the loss of years of natures hard work in her efforts to maintain mankind our horizons are limited we cannot move to new ground when fathers old farm is worn out weve got ot to make the most of what we hive have and try to improve it that is why the people asked congress to do something about it and that is why congress created a soil conservation service the service ehas has tried to post men throughout the country who have been trained in the sciences of soils irrigation engineering gi agronomy cropping methods and their relation to the sol forestry and range management these men are stationed in t the he counties of the 48 states to help the american farmer in any way they can to make our soil resources a perpetual asset instead of a d dying ying i resource which would surely result eventually in a dying nation the next article in the sanjuan san juan record will explain how the soil conservation service works with the farmers and how and why the soil conservation districts were organized |