Game Administration 249 



ject. Thus Mosier and Gustafson (University of Illinois, 1928), show that an 

 area of 5,365 square miles in 62 counties surveyed, or 15 per cent of the State, 

 consists of broken and hilly land subject to serious damage from surface wash- 

 ing. Some of this is already completely ruined. An additional 15 per cent of 

 undulating land is not badly damaged yet, but is in danger. 



All of this 30 per cent of threatened land area lies in the river break type, 

 which is the cream of the quail country. Restoration of vegetative cover in the 

 drainage channels would greatly enlarge the quail crop, and greatly reduce the 

 soil loss. 



M. L. Fisher, in his "Washed Lands of Indiana" (1919) shows various 

 degrees of land deterioration in almost every county of the State. He emphasizes 

 improved methods of cultivation as a remedy, but in my opinion underestimates 

 the possibilities of deliberate revegetation as a means of control. 



Carlos Bates, in his "Soil Erosion" (1930), measured erosion in the drift- 

 less area of southwestern Wisconsin. He found the run-off rate in forests (and 

 hence probably the rate of erosion) to be only about one-eighth as great as in 

 corn fields. Pasture, hayland, and small grain were intermediate. A third of 

 the southwestern counties he finds, are losing an inch of their richest topsoil every 

 20 years. Replacement of this inch through geological processes is estimated to 

 require 1,000 years. Methods of prevention are specified, one being the restora- 

 tion of cover in gullies and drainage channels. Bates says: 



"The sportsman's interest demands that cover for game be increased and the 

 stability and purity of streams be protected by an increase in the natural growth of 

 timber and brush in proximity to small streams and gulches." 



Present damage from erosion in the north central region is most prominent 

 in the Hill Belt, and in the river break and upper Mississippi types of the Agri- 

 cultural Belt. Part of the damage arises from careless methods of cultivation and 

 failure to conserve soil humus, but another and very important part arises from 

 the wholesale removal of brush, timber and grass cover from creek banks, drain- 

 age channels, and steep hillsides. These processes of devegetation have been 

 accomplished by grazing as well as by cutting, and have accompanied the in- 

 tensification of agriculture on practically all of the richer lands of the region. In 

 previous chapters the necessity of restoring at least part of this vegetation has 

 been pointed out as necessary for the production of game crops. It must here 

 be emphasized that its restoration is equally necessary for the conservation of the 

 land. Game conservation, conservation of soil fertility, and conservation of water- 

 sheds are jointly threatened by devegetation, and have a common interest in the 

 reversal of the present trend. It may be said without exaggeration that if the 

 cover needed for watershed conservation were restored to the drainage channels 

 and hillsides of the north central region, the upland game problem would be 

 half solved. 



There is something almost absurd in the expenditure of hundreds of millions 

 for navigation and flood control in the large rivers which drain from the north 



