SOIL EROSION

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 4951, 4 February 1937, Page 6

SOIL EROSION

LEGUME BEING USED TO COUNTERACT EFFECTS

Kudzu, a vigorous legume vine that came out of Japan and was used as a forage crop for some time in the south, is now being used by the Soil Conservation service in thousands of places to control gullying and soil erosion. The work is being accomppished largely in the south-eastern States, according to R. Y. Bailey, in charge of soil conservation operations in Alabama. While kudzu is a good forage plant, Mr Bailey is more interested in its soil-binding value. "It literally ropes down the land and checks that destructive washing and gully wasting which have ruined so much once rich farm land in the southern States," he says. Ten years ago the nectarine was imported from far away India as a possible crop for California. It did not do very well at first until the division of plant exploration of the Federal Government experimented with its growth at the Chico Introduction Gardens. This peachlike fruit has a creamy white flesh with read streaks near the brown pit to which it clings. Department botanists claim that it can now be grown successfully as far north as Hamburg, Iowa; Clinton, Illinois, and Pittsburg. Planted as far north as Storrs, Connecticut, the fruit failed to ripen.