Sideboards for Farms 



Southeastern Illinois Farmers Keep Soil Fertility 



Where They Want It with Strip Cropping and Terraces 



FUTURE? 

 Gully, sparse pasture, gaunt horse 

 . . . each is a chapter in the story 

 of depleted and eroding soil. 



TF you had a land stretcher — a ma- 

 -■- chine that would make 100-acre 

 fields out of 80's at a cost of $5 to $30 

 an acre — you'd be rich, that is, if Mr. 

 Hitler and company didn't see it first. 



Although they didn't have a land 

 stretcher, members of the Richland — 

 Crawford — Lawrence — Wabash Soil 

 Conservation Association, get the same 

 effect by putting sideboards on their 

 farms. Sideboards are cut to fit by the 

 soil conservation service working with 

 CCC camp 37 and four county Farm 

 Bureaus cooperating. 



Sideboard business started one day in 

 1933 when Forest Fisher, state co- 

 ordinator for the U. S. soil conserva- 

 tion service, called at the Lawrence 

 County Farm Bureau office. He and 

 Farm Adviser Wheeler put their heads 

 together over a plan for locating a 

 CCC camp near Lawrenceville. 



Later a group of young men, trained 

 in erosion control and soil conserva- 

 tion made the Farm Bureau their tem- 

 porary headquarters while the U. S. 

 Army was building the camp. Wheeler 

 introduced them to other farm advisers 

 in the district and to farmers who 

 might be interested in sideboards for 

 their farms that would save soil fer- 

 tility. 



Among the first cooperators with the 

 SCS crew was 50-year-old Tom Kent. 

 When he was a lad, red clover grew 

 nearly any place in Crawford county. 

 Then it began to fail. By the time 

 Tom was ready to farm for himself, it 

 was impossible to get a seeding. About 

 that time, too, erosion was setting in 

 and what was left of the top soil was 

 being washed towards the Gulf of 

 Mexico. 



As a young man, Tom read Frank I. 

 Mann's articles about farming. Thirty 

 years ago he tried Mann's system. He 

 spread a carload of limestone by hand 

 on nine acres. It made clover grow 

 again but the effect was temporary. He 

 wanted a way to keep lime on his 

 fields. 



JUNE, 1939 



Then came the CCC camp. Minot 

 Silliman, Jr., soil conservationist with 

 the camp, and Harold Maddox, camp 

 engineer, staked off 30 acres of Tom's 

 500-acre farm for terracing. CCC 

 crews made the terraces with a crawler 

 type tractor and blade terracer. They 

 set fences over to follow contours. Tom 

 studied the operation and learned how 

 to do it. Since then he has built ter- 

 races on nearly 40 more acres. He 

 plans to build more as time permits. 

 But until he can terrace, he is plant- 

 ing his crops around the slopes on 

 contour lines to reduce washing. 



Neighbors criticised. Terracing costs 

 too much, they complained. We can't 

 do it, we don't have manpower enough 

 or the machines with which to do it. 



Felix Pinkstaff, 66, has farmed the 

 hills of Crawford county all his life. 

 He was one who didn't criticise. He 

 wanted sideboards put on his farm, 

 too, but he didn't like the idea of farm- 

 ing in strips between the terraces. 

 That way he couldn't pasture the whole 

 field until all 'the crops, ranging from 

 winter wheat to corn, had been har- 

 vested. 



The sideboards Felix put on his farm 

 cost nothing and any farmer cropping 

 gently sloping fields can use the same 

 plan at the same cost. For several 

 years Felix had been farming a 40-acre 



slope in two square fields. In 1937, 

 both pieces were in timothy. Last 

 spring he plowed the sod for corn 

 leaving strips of sod a rod wide run- 

 ning across the 40 on contour lines. 

 While the strips of sod, called buffers, 

 had been staked out by Silliman and 

 Maddox, it is a job any farm adviser 

 can demonstrate. 



Contrary to Silliman's advice, Felix 

 planted his corn up and down the hill 

 right over the buffers. After the first 

 rain, he saw his mistake. Although 

 water cut finger gullies down the corn 

 rows, the strips saved tons of silt. 



Seeing the sideboards at work. Pink- 

 staff said: "From now on I'm going to 

 farm on the contour. I'm going to 

 put buffers on a couple of other fields 

 as soon as I can get a seeding of grass 

 started." 



Buffer strips are effective only on 

 gentle slopes where the soil is fertile 

 enough to grow a heavy stand of grass, 

 Silliman points out. 'Well-sodded buf- 

 fers will hold any fertilizer applied and 

 fields with buffers may be rotated in 

 the usual way with other fields. That's 

 the way Felix is planning to handle his 

 buffered fields. Already four tons of 

 limestone have been spread to the acre 

 in preparation for growing clover in 

 a three year rotation. 



THEIR FARMS WIU STAY IN ILLINOIS 



Felix Pinksiaii, upper left, uses bu&er strips. Vic Buchanan, lower left, battles erosion 



with terraces.*strip crops and pasture. Fay E. Duncan, center, insures his son's future 



with terraces and woodland. Tom Kent, upper right, holds fertility with terraces, finds it 



pays. Rev. L. A. Magill, lower right, wants to leave his farm better than he found it. 



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