294 SOILS 



brush break on uncultivated land because they 

 often sprout, take root and then permanently 

 hold the soil. 



Breaks are almost indispensable to good farming 

 in many parts of the South and ought to be used 

 more on the upland farms of other parts of the 

 country. The practice of searching for gullies and 

 checking them with breaks should be as much a 

 part of farm routine as plowing and seeding. Care- 

 ful farmers go over all their cultivated land several 

 times a year and check gullies. A gully that can 

 be stopped with a forkful of brush to-day may need 

 half a wagon load if left a year. It must be re- 

 membered, however, that breaks are a temporary 

 expedient. The real trouble is the inability of the 

 soil to absorb much water rapidly. Deep plowing, 

 green manuring or sodding may effect a permanent 

 improvement. 



increasing the Water-holding Capacity o) the 

 Soil. The more readily a soil absorbs water, 

 the more it can hold without running over as sur- 

 face drainage, and hence the less likely is it to be 

 injured by erosion. The soils most commonly 

 subject to gullying are clays. These absorb water 

 very slowly, so that during a heavy rain a very 

 large percentage of the water is not absorbed by 

 the soil even though the soil is quite dry but 

 flows off as surface drainage, causing erosion. 

 One of the most practicable ways of checking 

 erosion is to increase the water-holding capacity of 

 the soil by under-drainage, by adding humus and 

 by deep plowing. The soils that are most com- 

 monly subject to erosion, however, it is not usually 

 practicable to underdrain; the addition of humus 

 and deep plowing are more serviceable. Plowing 

 under green-manuring crops makes these gullying 



