ARBOR ICl'LTURH 



Such lands can be cultivated but a few 

 years, when they are abandoned as worn 

 out soils. 



The roots of trees hold the soil troin 

 washing while in forest, but as the trees 

 are removed the roots decay, and the 

 ground being loosened by the plow, is 

 soon washed into the streams. 



While such lands remain covered with 

 trees, the annual deposit of leaves con- 

 tinues to enrich the soil. and. graduallv 

 carried to the lower fields renew their 

 fertility, but with removal of these hill- 

 side forests the torrents come with 

 unimpeded velocity, to destroy the lower 

 fields as well as those upon the hillside. 

 The Ohio Valley is but one instance 

 where half a century ago there existed 

 the richest land of the continent, but 

 erosion has left the clay and rocks, with 

 fields unfertile and difficult to till. 



Prior to the Civil War period the Ohio 

 and ^lississippi rivers were the great 

 channels of commerce between the North 

 and the South. Many thousands of tons 

 of farm produce were annually shipped 

 by flat boats to the sugar and cotton 

 regions of the South. The lands were 

 "new," full of vegetable mould, produc- 

 tive and profitable to cultivate. Erosion 

 has removed the rich soil and deposited 

 it in the Gulf of Mexico. The flatboats 

 are gone, not because the railroads have 

 entered their field of commerce, for no 

 railway could compete with water trans- 

 portation, especially by the cheap method 

 of flatboating. It is simply that the farms 

 are not so productive as formerly, the 

 soil has been eroded, its fertility gone. 



The red clay lands of Alabama, 

 Georgia, Mississippi and the hill region 

 of the South generally, are instances of 

 erosion. The adhesiveness of the clay 

 is lessened by decomposition of the soil, 

 and each rain carries away the binding 

 materials of the clay, and when loosened 

 it is soon washed into deep gullies and 

 becomes unfit for cultivation. 



Such lands should be planted with 

 timber. The natural growths of pine, 

 which comes in so generously, should be 

 protected, for these forests will in time 

 overcome the tendency to erode. 



The bad lands of Montana and Da- 

 kota are other illustrations where the 



alkali is dissolved from the soil and car- 

 ried away by the melting snows ; the earth 

 remaining is of a light, ])orous, sandv 

 character and erodes very rapidly. Here 

 the depressions are from one hundred 

 to several hundred feet deep, broken 

 into ridges and steep gullies; some of 

 these elevations being of a harder char- 

 acter remain in masses of innumerable 

 shapes. Beds of lignite occurring 

 throughout these bad lands, and at times 

 taking fire, have given rise to conjecture 

 that these beds having burned out, the 

 land has sunken, but the simple fact is 

 erosion has done all this work. 



California has numerous demonstra- 

 tions of this power of erosion. Where 

 dense forests existed less than a quarter 

 of a century ago, they having been 

 cleared away, the soil has entirely dis- 

 appeared and bare granite rocks remain. 

 Forever worthless to man is much of 

 these eroded mountain tracts. 



The mountain lands in West Virginia, 

 Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and, in 

 fact, all steep inclines, once cleared of 

 the timber, and plowed, will produce but 

 a few crops, when the fertile loam dis- 

 appears by erosion, and usually such 

 lands are necessarily abandoned after ten 

 or a dozen crops have been grown. 



While there is such an abundance of 

 rich prairie soil and fertile valleys, suit- 

 able for cultivation, it is extremely un- 

 wise to clear away the forest growths on 

 mountain sides. At best a precarious 

 existence can be eked out by toilsome 

 cultivation of such fields, while as forest 

 they serve the purpose of supplying 

 necessary timber, aid in making the 

 streams permanent, and check severe 

 erosion. 



The remedy lies in rc-aflForestating the 

 steep hillsides, and many fields which are 

 not so steep. In replanting fne margins 

 of streams with forest trees and in plant- 

 ing trees wherever the land is inclined to 

 "wash" — so that the roots may catch and 

 retain the vegetation and the soil which 

 is washed from above — cease plowing 

 the steeper lands. Get these tracts in 

 grass and pasture if not willing to plant 

 again in trees. You cannot stop erosion, 

 but you may reduce it greatly by proper 

 care. 



