that, in a general way; but Uncle Sam can teach the average farmer 

 a wrinkle or two to" right the balance of the little drops and the 

 little grains. 



On the hillsides which wash so badly, the soil expert says we ought 

 to study contour farming, as it is called. A vertical or slanting fur- 

 row will soon become a vertical gully. The horizontal furrow at the 

 same elevation all around the hill has, on the other hand, a tendency 

 to stop the running off of water. Great benefit, also, comes from using 

 strips of grass land, lying in bands of the same elevation around the 

 sides of a dangerous hill. Terracing of farms is new in this country, 

 where we have always just gone West instead. We. see the terraces 

 of Chinese and Japanese lands, and suppose they must have been 

 made at the expense of great labor, but in reality it was Time and 

 Nature that made them. The soil which is washed out of the horizon- 



Karst, Hungaria. Once a beautiful forest. With the destruction of the forest the 

 soil disappeared. Masonry walls necessary to hold the little soil that remains. 

 Agricultural community but practice confined to two crops, grapes and cabbage. 



tal furrow is in part or in whole stopped when it strikes the edge of 

 the grass land. In many years it banks up more and more. If not 

 controlled it would not bank up, but simply run down the hill and 

 fly away into the mighty ocean. 



In rolling lands the canny farmer plants crops toward the tops of 

 the hills to produce cover and mulch, and so to stop wash. He reserves 

 some of his bottom lands for grass, to catch the soil-wash and use it. 

 If he did not, some of his farm would run away, and not only im- 

 poverish him, but, perhaps, work injury to his neighbor. It is not 

 good farming to farm every inch of a rich bottom. A few bands of 

 trees would break the driving force of rain. The roots would stand 

 against soil-wash and regulate the flooding which make bottom farming 

 so risky in some localities. The average farmer may not believe in 



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