SOIL CONSERVATION 



DOES PAY! 



By E. L. SAUER 



Project Supervisor, Division of Economic Research, 

 United States Soil Conservation Service 



SOIL conservacion farming does pay 

 — the question is how much? 

 An approach to this question is to 

 be found in the results of studies car- 

 ried on in McLean county by the de- 

 partment of agricultural economics, U. 

 of L College of Agriculture, and the 

 division of economic research, Soil 

 Conservation Service, in cooperation 

 with O. L. Welsh, McLean county farm 

 adviser, and C. C. Morgan, conserva- 

 tionist for the McLean County Soil 

 Conservation District. 



The farm records used in the study 

 were started in 1935 in the LeRoy Soil 

 Conservation Project Area, one of the 

 first projects of its kind in the United 

 States, and continued and extended to 

 cover the work in the McLean Coanty 

 Soil Conservation District. 



Using farm account records of 20 co- 

 operators who are operating their 

 farms in accordance with a planned 

 program of soil conservation and ero- 

 sion control and the records of 20 

 neighboring farmers who do not oper- 

 ate their farms under a planned soil 

 conservation program, some interesting 

 facts are revealed. 



Taking the nine-year average, 

 1935-43, the conservation farms 

 showed a net income of $14.83 

 per acre as compared with the non- 

 conser^-ation farms of $11.60 per 

 acre. The crop yield index (coun- 

 ty average- 100) was 104 for con- 

 servation farms and 94 for non- 

 conservation farms. This net 

 gain of $3.2-3 per acre from con- 

 servation farming represents in- 

 creased earnings of $5,168 for a 

 10 year period on a l60-acre farm. 

 Corn yields on the conservation 

 farms were 5 bushels an acre higher 

 than on the non-conservation farms. 

 Studies of the economic effect of in- 

 dividual conservation practices reveal 

 yield results and costs of contour farm- 

 ing, strip cropping and terracing. . 



Contour farming with terraces, 

 contour farming with buffer 

 strips, strip cropping, and con- 

 tour farming the entire field 

 with the same crop, resulted in 

 average yield increases of 8 to 11 

 per cent for com, soybeans, and 

 oats for the 5-year period, 1939- 

 43. 



Specific increases in yields were 5.0 

 bushels of corn, 2.1 bushels of soy 

 beans, and 3.6 bushels of oats from 

 "around-the-hill" farming compared 

 with "up-and-down the hill" farming 

 on the same farms. 



Contour farming practices enables 

 the soil on slopes and hillsides to 

 sponge up most of the rain and store 

 it for the dry months of July and Au- 

 gust, and these practices also help pre- 

 vent soil washing and erosion losses. 

 Based on the average crop yields per 

 acre for the account keeping farms 

 from which these data were secured, 

 "around-the-hill" farming avenged for 

 the five years 1939-43t thes following 

 percentage increases: corn, 9 per cent; 

 soybeans, 10 per cent, and oats, 11 

 per cent. 



In a study of farm opexating costs 

 resulting from conservation practices, 

 farms on which all or the major part 

 of the farming operations were on the 

 contour were matched with comparable 

 farms on which none of the field oper- 

 ations were on the contour. 



The results of this study for the 



J2 



L A. A. RECORD 



