SOIL WASTAGE n 



there is much deleterious crowding and repressive rivalry among the 

 natural mixtures of plants, but at the same time there seem to be 

 associations that are mutually beneficial. No doubt man secures a 

 great temporary advantage by isolating chosen plants and freeing them 

 from competition, but this is clearly at some permanent disadvantage 

 which is partially corrected by rotation, fertilizing and tilth. Can not a 

 greater advantage be secured by a larger use of the combination method ? 

 It is clear that legumes and cereals are helpful associates in rotation 

 and in some combinations. May not the principle be pushed much 

 farther by the modern processes of selection and culture, so that 

 legumes and cereals may be made more intimate companions in culture ; 

 so that, indeed, such helpful associates may replace weeds as the con- 

 stant and spontaneous companions of the crops we cultivate? While 

 kept in such subordination as to be servants of the chosen crop, may 

 they not still aid effectively in covering and protecting the soil and thus 

 guard against undue surface loss. Certainly much can be done by 

 such congenial plants, used as fall, winter and spring crops, to cover the 

 soil when specially exposed to wastage. 



These and similar devices may be used to reduce the bare surfaces 

 so much developed by present modes of cultivation, and may make it 

 possible to cover permanently by profitable protecting crops the slopes 

 where surface wash is most menacing. 



But a critical question remains to be answered : Can such modes of 

 soil-management and crop-selection be made to give reasonable profits? 

 Before we can hope that the millions who till the soils will join 

 effectively in a radical scheme of soil-conservation, it must be made to 

 appear that the scheme will give reasonable returns at every large 

 stage of its progress ; must pay, let us say, in the long run of a lifetime. 

 We may fairly assume that intelligent people will be guided by the total 

 returns of a lifetime in lieu of beguilement by the ultra-quick returns 

 of forced and wasteful cropping in total neglect of later results. It 

 may be assumed that he who tills a farm from his twentieth to his 

 sixtieth year will find more satisfaction in the summed profits of forty 

 crops of increasing value, enhanced by the higher value of his land at 

 the end, even, though the margin above cost be no greater, than in the 

 sum of forty crops of decreasing values with a debased land at the 

 end. Our practical problem is, therefore, to so improve processes, to 

 so increase intelligent management, and to so exalt the point of view, 

 that every large step in the processes proposed shall give satisfactory 

 returns for the labor involved. How far this is practicable just now, 

 I must leave to those whose technical knowledge in the practical art of 

 tillage fits them to answer; but it is clear that if such protective meas- 

 ures are not profitable now, they must soon become so; for, if the loss 

 of soil proceeds at the present rate and the number of inhabitants 



