Obviously, this recommendation contains impracticable 

 suggestions; it is cited to indicate how serious a pioneer 

 investigator considered the problem of water conservation. 



[4] Check Dams in Gullies. 



The improved farm practices noted above pertain particu- 

 larly to sheet and rill erosion, its earliest stage. But on many 

 farms in the United States erosion has reached the much 

 more serious stage of gullies, large as well as small. There is 

 much the individual landowner can do to check gullying, and 

 in some favorable places even restore gullied land to a state 

 suitable for cultivation. In rare instances terracing will 

 restore moderately gullied land, but generally it is necessary 

 to construct at the head and at more or less short intervals in 

 a gully (depending on its characteristics), check or stabiliza- 

 tion dams which consist of a small line of posts across the 

 gully against which are laid logs, brush, rocks, straw, woven 

 wire, metal waste, and other materials. Where gullying is 

 very bad, dry stone wall checks may have to be constructed. 

 However, in contrast, one of the outstanding recent achieve- 

 ments of the Soil Conservation Service is the development, 

 particularly in the Piedmont section of the United States, of 

 a unique low-cost method of gully control requiring only 

 labor and vegetative materials logs, brush, straw. The 

 effect of these methods is to reduce the velocity of the run-off 

 and thereby its carrying and cutting power. There are many 

 instances in which reduction of velocity has caused the 

 dropping of soil in suspension to such an extent that it has in 

 a very brief period filled up a gully of considerable size to a 

 level with the surrounding land and restored the site to culti- 

 vation. In other instances, especially on steep slopes, the 

 check dams stabilize the situation until planted shrubs and 

 trees can get a hold, and eventually a permanent brush cover 

 or even a new, productive forest is created. 



[5] Check Dams on Streams. 



On many farms are creeks or other small streams which 

 once carried water throughout the year, but today serve only 

 as channels to hurry rainy-season run-off to the lakes and 



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