soil before it joins the large rill by the road. The 

 cornfield that was left bare all winter has lost some 

 of its best loam by planting time. Gullies appear 

 on the farm here and there, widening and deepen- 

 ing after every rain. The soil on the knolls and 

 hills becomes thin and yellow, for the rich, blaOk 

 surface soil has been wasned into the bottoms, and 

 part of it has hurried off to help build up some 

 excellent farming land down stream. 



After a heavy rain the farmer can see the best 

 part of his soil creeping,* running, racing away from 

 nim. A thousand murky rills slowly meander 

 across his plowed ground, and gather force in the 

 hollows. A hundred turbid rivulets pour down 

 the hollows and join waters in the gulch. A dozen 

 muddy brooklets rush down the gulch, swell the 

 brook into a creek and race down stream, bearing 

 away tons of the rich silt and loam that make 

 plants grow. When the rain is over and the soaked 

 soil has dried out enough to till, there are gravelly 

 places that the farmer finds it hard to malke pro- 

 ductive, and rocks are exposed. 



In extreme cases the soil may be almost or wholly 

 ruined for cropping in a few years, becoming 

 gullied and thin. In most cases, however, the loss 

 is less conspicuous, but scarcely less disastrous. 

 This is an exact report of what is taking place 

 to-day on thousands of American farms. 



The Great Loss by Erosion in the South. Every 

 farm that has an irregularity of surface, however 

 slight, pays tribute to the force of moving water. 

 The most serious losses from erosion, however, are 

 on hill farms. The red clay soils of the South, and 

 especially in the uplands of Tennessee, Georgia, 

 the Carolinas, Mississippi and along the banks of 

 the Ohio River, are gouged and gullied every year, 



