CHAPTER: VI 
SOIL COVERING 
OO much stress cannot be laid upon the im- 
portance of doing that to your soil which will 
keep it covered during the season of fall, 
winter and spring, which is known as the leaching sea- 
son. 
Terrific is the destruction each year to soil by leach- 
ing. Stand by our streams and rivers during their 
floodtides and see the thick consistency of their waters 
made so by the heavy rains that fall upon the soil, mix- 
ing and dissolving its particles of dust and litter. 
Hillsides and valleys are swept of their soil by the 
rapid washing of the waters, which, as stated, occurs 
more frequently in the rainy season. 
Soils covered by, and filled with, close-lying herbage 
and thickly rooted plants will not wash or wear away 
under the action of falling water, neither will such 
covered or root-filled soils be blown away by the winds. 
If an estimate could be made of the soil wealth car- 
ried away each year by the waters falling from the 
clouds and washing away over our fields into our 
streams and rivers to the sea, and by the blowing of 
the winds, it would be appalling. 
The remedy to check and preserve this flow of soil 
69 
