Terracing will do it. It is a simple little operation. This is your farm, 

 you want to terrace it. I would come out with a simple level that costs 

 about twenty dollars, that every farm bureau ought to have so that farm- 

 ers can get it to determine levels for buildings, terraces, etc. We go out 

 there and look over the forty. Now the first thing we need to determine is 

 where are we going to put the water? Its natural course is over here (in- 

 dicating), and if it goes there it is going to go pretty rapidly, because the 

 land slopes fifteen or twenty feet to the hundred, and having that slope a 

 two or three or four inch rain has a tremendous power to carry dirt, 

 not only the dirt, but the plant food and organic matter from the entire 

 surface. 



We go out there and the first thing we need to determine is where we 

 are going to put the water. We can put it over here or there in this par- 

 ticular field. We have two ways to get rid of that water. All right, we 

 will start up on the hillside, and with our level we will start at a point 

 right here (indicating), and we are going to run a line that falls six inches 

 in a hundred feet. We are going to decide to draw the water off at this 

 side, wherever the line goes. It runs right here (indicating), not very 

 straight. It will curve around. It depends on how much it is cut up by 

 the gullies. If there is .a roadside of course the water will follow along the 

 roadside and cut a pretty big ditch on this side of the road. 



Then the next thing we drop down the hillside three to five feet lower 

 than that point and we run another line here (indicating), and it goes out 

 there. Then we start down here another five feet lower than that, and here 



Constructing a terrace with a V-shaped drag 



(Courtesy Missouri Experiment Station) 



we run another line. You see I am just guessing where this line will run. 

 Now after we have run those lines in that manner, while we are doing that, 

 you and I will have the farm hand come out with a team and p'ow 

 These stakes are set every fifty feet. That fall is six inches in a hundred 

 feet and he plows there just like he was going to start a land. The next 

 thing is to build a ridge there. In that way all the water that falls above 

 runs down to this terrace and on out. 



