144 Practical Farming 



But even these are not always effective, for at times 

 there will come a flood of rain large enough to swell up 

 and overflow the banks and the result is a worse wash 

 than if there was no bank there, because of the gathered 

 head of water. The real cure for the trouble can only be 

 made by a total abandonment of the methods of culture 

 which are responsible for the washing, the shallow plowing 

 and the constant working of the land in clean hoed crops. 

 When these hills were first cleared from the forest the 

 land did not wash because it was full of humus and the 

 fibrous matter from tree roots. But year after year only 

 a few inches of the loose surface soil were stirred, the humus 

 was used up, and the soil became more compact and in- 

 clined to run together and bake, and when the shallow- 

 plowed surface got filled with water and was reduced to 

 a creamy condition, while the clay below remained per- 

 fectly hard, it naturally ran down the hill carrying off all 

 the plowed surface and leaving the hard red clay exposed 

 to the action of the rain and the frosts of winter, and every 

 rain took off all that the frost had heaved up, and a gall 

 and gully were formed. 



It has been seen that the so-called terracing 

 How Shall Qf t^g Southern hills has been but a partial 

 We Prevent j i i 



this Washing remedy, and that m spite of the banks the 



soil continues to wash; it is evident that the 

 only real cure is to return the land to the conditions that 

 existed when it was freshly cleared, and to plow the land 

 so deeply that it will retain a great deal more water with- 

 out running. Crop rotation, then, in which the legumes 

 come frequently on the land as a means for the restoration 

 of the humus, accompanied by deep plowing and subsoil- 



