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Ecology and Wild Life Conservation 



The study of organisms in relationship to their environment is known 

 as ecology. In recent years this subject has become very important in 

 many fields that are of vital importance to man. The principles of 

 ecology have been applied to agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, 

 wild life management, fisheries, and conservation of the land and water 

 with amazing results. Many students of conservation believe that the 

 fate of mankind rests on our ability to stop soil erosion before all our 

 tillable land washes into the sea. A reliable report estimates that one 

 third of our land is already hopelessly destroyed and another third is 

 badly damaged and will soon be eroded beyond hope of recovery. That 

 will leave us only one third of our tillable land to support our rapidly 

 expanding population. When land becomes badly eroded, it not only 

 becomes unproductive but the people living on it become poor, mal- 

 nourished, and a social problem. Finally the valuable wild life dies or 

 deserts the area. 



In recent years county agents, soil conservation experts, and colleges 

 of agriculture have combined their efforts in an attempt to reverse this 

 trend which threatens to change us into a "have not" nation comparable 

 to China and India with their starving millions. They have classified 

 land according to its proper use for those who request it. They have 

 recommended that hilly land be kept permanently in forests, land with 

 moderate slopes be used for pasture but not plowed, and only the rela- 

 tively flat lands be used for crops. These better lands have been further 

 divided into those that require special care and those that do not. In 

 the first group plowing should be done along the contours of the fields 

 to reduce erosion, and a strip of soil-binding wheat or rye alternated 

 with corn, potatoes, or similar crops which do not hold the soils prop- 

 erly. Terraces can make still steeper slopes available for crops. Gullies 

 have been stopped by planting soil-binding plants or by a series of small 

 dams. The most rugged lands have in many cases been turned into 

 parks or public forests and planted with trees where necessary by federal, 

 state, or local governments. 



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