CHAPTER XXIV 

 THE SOIL CONSERVATION SERVICE 



The Soil Erosion Service was authorized under the National Indus- 

 trial Recovery Act and was created by order of Secretary Harold L. 

 Ickes, Public Works Administrator, in August, 1933, with an initial 

 allocation of $5,000,000 of PWA funds. Later, additional allocations 

 of $15,000,000 were made available for this Service which was oper- 

 ated under the Department of the Interior until April, 1935, when it 

 was transferred to the Department of Agriculture and renamed the 

 Soil Conservation Service. 



The program of the Service represents the first attempt in the his- 

 tory of the nation to organize large and comprehensive erosion and 

 flood-control projects in representative watersheds of the major agri- 

 cultural regions. The plan for each project involves the coordination 

 of necessary engineering, forestry, and cropping measures carried out 

 conjointly as the character of the land and its condition may prescribe. 



The fundamental objective of the Soil Conservation Service is to 

 preserve the great agricultural wealth of the country from impoverish- 

 ment and depletion through the washing away of the fertile top soil 

 and the gullying which follows. Closely related to the subject of soil 

 erosion are the problems of reservoir and stream silting and general 

 flood control. Precipitation in the form of rainwater and snows should 

 be retained as far as possible in the soil where it falls, instead of 

 permitting it to enter the streams and add to their burden of soil 

 debris for deposit on the rich bottomlands at lower levels and in the 

 channels of navigable and other streams. More than 400 million 

 tons * of suspended solid matter pass out of the mouth of the Missis- 

 sippi River every year. In pursuit of these objectives, the major 

 purpose of the Service is to establish soil erosion demonstrations on a - 

 watershed basin in those regions where erosion is a critical factor 

 in agriculture. Within its province is included all lands concerned 

 with the drainage basins of selected watersheds. 



* Enough top soil is lost annually in the Mississippi River basin to build 

 1250 farms of 160 acres each with a soil depth of 12 inches. 



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