SOIL CONSERVATION

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21180, 29 October 1938, Page 15

SOIL CONSERVATION

EXPERIMENTS IN TEXAS RECLAMATION OF WASTE LAND The Department of Agriculture’s soil conservation service is doing great work in reclaiming to productive cultivation the barren sand dunes of the vast desert regions of America. In 1936 they leased for experiment a 900-acre tract in Texas, where the wind had piled up dunes 30ft. high, their main objectives, besides the general levelling of the area, were the binding of the land by cover crops and the conservation of moisture. For the former purpose they found the ideal crop to be a dwarf-growing milo, which stands up to the hammering winds and fierce sun to which the American prairies are subjected. For moisture conservation they are employing a method of contour farming. Rain in these regions comes in heavy bursts and runs quickly off the sloping land. By a carefully-planned system of furrows and terraces the water is caught and allowed to sink back into the soil. A natural difficulty is to induce the already impoverished farmers of these regions to refrain from trying to grow wheat in a season when tests show that the subsoil is parched far below root growth, and to plant cover crops instead. Many farmers, however, aided by the Government, are now working in accordance with the soil conservation plan. The dunes have been levelled off with road graders, every drop of rainfall conserved, and crops consistently planted that will anchor and improve the soil. Millions of acres previously classed as “destroyed" are now again carrying first-rate crops.

The Australian Department of Agriculture sent their chief experimentalist, Mr E. 8. Clayton, to study these and other methods of soil conservation. New Zealand on a lesser scale also has her erosion problems and results such as have been achieved in the American desert are well worthy of observation.