THE FARM LANDSCAPE 283 



The grass and trees that blanket once-gullied fields or strip mined 



areas. 



The lakes and ponds that dot the countryside. 



The multiple-use forest growth that replaces naked earth. 



As these and other measures improve his income, the landowner 

 can afford farmstead improvements that result in further beautifica- 

 tion. 



This is not enough, I hasten to say, to meet all the objectives of 

 the total program needed to enhance beauty throughout the land. 



We still need the public attitudes and actions, by rural people, 

 that will reject dirty streams, careless fire in woodlands, littered 

 farmsteads. 



We need to stimulate the desire for painted buildings, for grassed 

 roadsides, for flowers, for proper junk and waste disposal on farms 

 and in rural communities. 



We need, too, greater appreciation and understanding by the city 

 dweller, as a citizen and as a periodic rural visitor, of his part in main- 

 taining beauty in the countryside. 



Time will not permit exploring all the areas where the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture is redirecting and reinforcing its efforts in the 

 field of natural beauty. Let me, however, mention just a few things 

 we are doing and propose to do to see that beautification programs 

 move forward actively in rural areas. 



The Secretary of Agriculture has assigned to one agency the 

 specific responsibility for coordinating all the department's efforts 

 toward natural beauty. He has issued a major policy statement that 

 makes natural beauty a clear-cut objective in USDA's varied pro- 

 grams of research and education, technical, credit and cost-sharing 

 assistance. 



It may be of interest, also, to report that before the end of this 

 year, the department will begin work to update the National In- 

 ventory of Soil and Water Conservation Needs. This inventory, 

 completed and published originally about five years ago, provided the 

 first clear-cut picture of the total condition of our non-Federal land 

 resources. 



We found in this inventory, for example, that soil erosion was still 

 a dominant problem on more than one-third of our cropland. 



We found that nearly two-thirds of the Nation's cropland and 

 more than half of the private forest and woodland needed conserva- 

 tion treatment. 



779-595 65 19 



