Soil Building Power of Trees 



Certain kinds of trees, like the locust and the aca- 

 cias, build up poor soil through nitrogen-gathering 

 bacteria in the root nodules, according to the U. S. 

 Forest Service, others simply through the dropping of 

 their leaves. The soil building power of the trees 

 is a fact which a farmer should not overlook, espe- 

 cially on steep slopes. Steep lands which have been 

 cleared of timber at great expense, after being cul- 

 tivated a few years, often becomes gullied, and the 

 rich lands adjoining are covered deep with deposits 

 of sand. The surest and cheapest methods of pro- 

 tecting such slopes is to maintain forests oil them. 



Small gullies can be stopped up by closely packed 

 brush arid tree tops, anchored by stakes if necessary. 

 Large open gullies are checked successfully only by 

 planting over the entire gully basin, supplemented by 

 low brush dams across the larger units of the gully. 



There are thousands of acres of such steep slopes 

 along the streams in the southern part of this state 

 and thousands of just such gullies. These hillsides 

 are practically worthless for cultivation or even for 

 grazing, but they offer a splendid opportunity for 

 city or county parks and forests. 



The fuel and lumber problems of many a town 

 could be successfully solved by these hillsides, if they 

 were only given a chance. 



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