Many believe that another century of present trends would 

 leave the United States unable to maintain the agriculture 

 on which her civilization rests; that the United States is not 

 a "permanent country", and is on the way to join decadent 

 parts of China and Asia Minor, once opulent and magnificent, 

 but now stripped of their fertile soils and buried in the dust 

 of destructive exploitation of resources; that if something 

 effective is not done within a generation, it will be too late 

 over numerous large areas, for this earth disease, like some 

 human diseases, can never be cured if neglected during the 

 early stages. 



The soil-erosion specialists tell us that the dust storm of 

 May 11, 1934, swept 300 million tons of fertile topsoil off the 

 great wheat plains; that 400 million tons of soil material are 

 washed annually into the Gulf of Mexico by the Mississippi 

 River; that generally water and wind erosion together each 

 year remove beyond use 3 billion tons of soil. 1 



They find that 100 million once-fertile acres of farm 

 land equal to Illinois, Ohio, Maryland, and North Carolina 

 combined have been essentially destroyed for profitable 

 farming; that another 125 million acres are seriously im- 

 paired; and that another 100 million acres are threatened 

 all belonging to the best farm lands of the United States. 



And further; that the present annual money loss to land 

 owners and to the Nation is not less than 400 million dollars 

 each year; that the annual rate has been increasing; that the 

 cumulative loss may be conservatively stated as already not 

 less than 10 billion dollars; and that, if the wastage is not 

 stopped, in another SO years the cumulative loss will reach 

 the staggering figures of 25 or 30 billion dollars, equivalent to 

 a loss of $4,000 on each and every farm in the United States. 



This is not a loss of income the flow of which can be re- 

 sumed, but of assets that cannot be recovered, for it takes 

 Nature centuries to make the equivalent of the top soil which 



1 Brown snow fell throughout New England on February 24, 1936. Blown 2,000 miles, 

 the powdery top-soil of the Southwest made its first appearance in New England. The 

 U. S. Weather Bureau and the Blue Hill Observatory of Harvard University stated that 

 the snow, which was formed about these dust particles, ranged from amber to reddish brown 

 in color. It was reported that the deposits of dust amounted to about 10 tons per square 

 mile. 



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