He overdrew his bank account, more in America than ever has been 

 known in all the long, slow history either of the world or of the earth. 



It would not be worth while to make here merely a series of sweep- 

 ing general statements, or to make statements not definitely under- 

 standable. As it happens, the chapter and verse are ready at hand. 

 It is entirely feasible not only to organize the waste in American soil, 

 but to measure it. The late Professor N. S. Shaler estimated the 

 destruction of agricultural lands, chiefly through old-field erosion, in 

 the southern Atlantic and Gulf States at several thousand square 

 miles; and in portions of this region the waste involves a complete 

 removal of a superficial geologic deposit, well adapted to forming a 

 productive soil, from underlying older formations ill-suited to the 

 development of fertile soils and subsoils, in which case the loss is 

 irremediable. 



Other estimates of soil-waste rest on the determination of soil- 

 matter transported by our running waters. The most extensive meas- 

 urements of this kind were those of Generals Humphreys and Abbott, 

 made on the Mississippi over half a century ago. These showed that 

 the Mississippi then carried annually into the Gulf something over 

 four hundred million tons of solid matter, in addition to great quan- 

 tities of earth-salts, carried in solution, and of sand or other coarse 

 material rolled or swept along the bottom. 



At the time of these determinations settlement in the Mississippi 

 Valley was comparative^ limited, and, as shown by local observa- 

 tions on different rivers, the effect of extending agriculture has been 

 to increase the soil-matter carried by the Mississippi fully twenty-five 

 per cent; while comparative determinations made on several other 

 streams indicate that the rivers of the country outside of the Mis- 

 sissippi basin carry into the sea about as much soil-matter as the 

 great river itself that is, that the annual soil-wash of the United 

 Sates aggregates fully one billion tons ! Our balance of trade is going 

 some, isn't it? Also, unfortunately, our soil, which raised that bal- 

 ance of trade, is going some. 



A fraction of the matter transported by the waters is coarse (sand 

 and gravel), but fully ninety per cent consists of rich soil-stuff wash- 

 ed from the surface or leached from the subsurface of fields and 

 pastures and (in less degree) of woodlands. Reckoned on the basis 

 of value as fertilizer, the material could hardly be appraised at less 

 than one dollar per ton; so that the annual loss to the agricultural 

 interests of the country can hardly fall short of a billion dollars 

 equivalent to an impost as great as most other taxes combined, and 

 one yielding absolutely no return. It is worse than that. Most of 

 us have known stocks to pass a dividend. How would you feel if the 

 whole stock and everything back of it were wiped out? What would 

 we think of the management that allowed such an event to happen? 

 But this is happening and under our own management. 



The foregoing are estimates made by a United States soil expert. 

 Other competent Government authorities can offer us definite food for 

 additional thought, if we care to hearken. The greatest loss of our 

 soil, we are told, is from preventable erosion. The total soil-wash of 

 the country is a billion tons a year. This would make a pile of adobe 



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