In researching Hugh Hammond Bennett, the man responsible for the soil conservation movement of that time (and ulitmate founder of the Soil Conservation Service, now the Natural Resources Conservation Service in the U.S. Department of Agriculture), I found this mans words and foresight to explore issues we are facing today. Has it really been 65 years since we knew better???
quote:
"Unless the United States goes ahead vigorously, persistently, and speedily to defend and conserve the soil and to make far-reaching adjustments in its complex land economy, national decadence lies ahead.""As a nation we need to renew our acquaintance with the land and reaffirm our faith in its continuity of productiveness—when properly treated. If we are bold in our thinking, courageous in accepting new ideas, and willing to work with instead of against our land, we shall find in conservation farming an avenue to the greatest food production the world has ever known—not only for the war, but for the peace that is to follow.
"Today, we are simply retracing our steps across the land in an effort to correct past mistakes in the interest of the future."
From a speech given July 25, 1936
Let me say a few words at this point in reference to our American habits of waste. The forces which drove our pioneering forbears westward in history's greatest march of agricultural occupation, gave rise to a misconception of the extent and durability of the land and other natural resources of this continent. It would be useless to dwell at length upon these earlier misconceptions with respect to the permanency of our soil, our streams, our forests and wildlife—misconceptions that have cost us much. Probably no nation or race has been so negligent and wasteful of its land. Civilizations have disappeared because the same kind of mistakes were made on the land during thousands of years. But think of the short time it has taken us to ruin 50,000,000 acres, seriously damage another 50,000,000 acres, strip the soil or most of it from 100,000,000 acres more and get the process of wastage under way on still an additional 100,000,000 acres! Think of the result of this wastage—of the tens of thousands of farmers reduced to the lowly level of bankrupt farming on land hopelessly impoverished by erosion! What has happened to Oklahoma is appalling: A new State with 13 million acres of its 16 million in cultivation already suffering seriously from erosion, half of it having reached the stage of gullying.
Think how quickly we slaughtered for their hides the millions of buffalo that formerly roamed the plains, and the very short time it took us to strip off the grass which for countless centuries had supported those roaming herds without serious damage to the land! I am sure we are not likely soon to forget the dust storms that have carried rich soil from the plains country at the heart of the nation to the Atlantic Ocean, then to the Gulf of Mexico, and again to the Pacific Ocean, according to the direction of the wind; nor are we likely to forget that it was our failure to safeguard the land against the winds that gave birth in this country to the same type of dust phenomena common to the regions bordering the Sahara.
Waste has characterized the use of most of our natural resources. The last passenger pigeon on the globe died in a Cincinnati zoo in September, 1914. I am sure that some of us here have heard our fathers say that in their time the very skies were dark with the flights of this beautiful bird. Specialists say that this species was one of the most abundant game birds ever known in any country. Within a few generations we have effaced the legions of this species from the earth, and should man dwell upon the earth millions of years he would never behold another passenger pigeon.
In this manner we have exhausted and continue to exhaust irreplaceable resources. The soil is one of these. When it passes out to sea—and more than a half billion tons enter the oceans every year—it is lost forever. Even that which washes no farther than from the upper to the lower side of a field is essentially lost, since under our American system it is not likely to be hauled back. Soil reproduces from its parent materials so slowly—probably not faster than an inch in 400 to 1,000 years—that we may as well accept as a fact that once the surface layer is washed off, land so affected is generally in a condition of permanent impoverishment.
In somewhat similar manner we have wasted and misused our water resources. That is really what I am to discuss tonight, although I shall proceed somewhat indirectly, or more along the line of discussing water control.
Lindaland
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posted February 22, 2010 02:09 PM
posted February 22, 2010 03:17 PM