WATER SUPPLY 

 Engineer Maddox, left, and Conservationiat Silliman in- 

 specting a CCC-built dam on Frank Lindsay'i iarm. The 

 overflow empties info a gully protected by black locust seed- 

 lings. Water is piped under the dam to a tank serving two 

 pastures. Dam holds more than three ioot-acres oi water. 



TREES SMOTHER GULLIES 

 6500 black locust seedlings, like the one shown above, 

 were planted on Frank Lindsay's form this spring. In three 

 years they will be gully-stoppers like those on W. H. Nuttall's 

 place shown to the right. The arrow points to a mon standing 

 in the old gully. The trees will grow into valuable fence posts. 



BUFFER 

 Strips oi timothy sod 

 following the contour 

 saved tons oi Felix 

 Pinkstaif's soil last year. 

 This is the cheapest 

 form oi erosion control. 



COWPATH EROSIOH 

 Vic Buchanan points to path 

 that will become a gully if it 

 isn't sodded over soon. Short 

 fences across the terrace outlet, 

 left, will be extended to make 

 Bossy go around. 



son. PROTECTORS 

 CCC crews fencing a grassed 

 waterway and terrace outlet on 

 Lyman Emmons' form. Crews 

 build soil-saving devices then 

 fence them in to prevent damage 

 by livestock. 



TERRACING 

 A terrace is simply a 

 ditch around a hill. It 

 slopes one foot in every 

 100. This is enough fall 

 to take surplus water 

 from a heavy rain. 



Chinch bugs are the major threat in 

 terraced, strip-crop farming, according 

 to Fay E. Duncan, president of the 

 RCL>3C' Soil Conservation Association. 

 Take a strip of wheat for example. 

 While there may be five acres in the 

 piece it will be, perhaps, eight rods 

 wide by 90 rods long. Chinch bugs go 

 through it in half a day and be in the 

 corn strip next to it before any control 

 measure could be adopted. 



In spite of bugs, Duncan believes 

 soil conservation is worth the risk. 

 Since 1926 he has kept Farm Bureau- 

 Farm Management records. They 

 showed him the value of building up 

 his soil and he was among the first 

 to apply both limestone and rock phos- 

 phate to his fields. But like Tom Kent, 

 he early discovered the need for some 

 method of holding fertility in place. 



To hold his soil. Fay, with the help 

 of P. E. Johnston of the farm manage- 

 ment department. University of Illi- 

 nois, built terraces on one field nearly 

 ten years ago. One of the first in the 

 county to lay out long fields for trac- 

 tor farming. Fay found, too, that this 

 system promotes soil erosion. Now his 

 210-acre timber soil farm is all laid 

 out for strip cropping both with and 

 without terraces. 



"I like to raise hogs and have made 

 good profits on them," Fay said. "Al- 



though Mr. Silliman calls them 'ero- 

 sion specialists,' I intend to keep on 

 raising them. I'm careful, though, 

 about rotating hog pastures to keep 

 plenty of grass growing for cover. 



"I believe I can go on building up 

 my farm now to a better state of pro- 

 ductivity than ever before. Although 

 I've had to get used to farming 

 around the slope, I'm better satisfied 

 with my strip cropping and terraces 

 all the time." 



Vic Buchanan and his brother 

 bought 135 acres of hill and bottom 

 land at the edge of Lawrenceville in 

 1936. Two gullies running down the 



hill from the barn lot crossed the bot- 

 tom land cutting it into three pieces. 

 When CCC crews started putting side- 

 boards on Vic's place they faced the 

 task of terracing the hill and making 

 the bottom into one field. 



The two gullies were sodded for 

 waterways. At the bottom of the hill, 

 two diversion ditches were dug. One 

 leading water off the farm to the left, 

 the other to the right. The waterways 

 opened into the ditches. Complete 

 with terraces, this drainage system takes 

 run-off water completely off the farm. 

 Now the bottom land is in one piece 

 and it's as neat an engineering feat as 

 you'll see anywhere. 



Terraces in one field open into a 

 bluegrass pasture which Silliman says 

 is the very best place for an outlet. Vic 

 found, however, that his cows aren't 

 erosion conscious. They made a path 

 right up the terrace outlets first thing. 

 That was dangerous. Water running off 

 the field flowed down the path starting 

 a gully. Vic out-smarted his Jerseys by 

 putting up fences a couple of rods 

 long across the path at intervals of 

 four rods. The cows could graze be- 

 tween the fences but they had to walk 

 around them to get up hill. 



"I'd never try farming a sloping 



(Continued on page 13, Col. 2) 



12 



L A. A. RECORD 



