38 BULLETIN 316, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



fully, however, along the smaller streams that in the aggregate 

 destroy large areas of the richest land. 



There are often places where floods have left perpendicular banks 

 of soft soil, which, being constantly undermined by the current, cave 

 in from time to time. It is very important that such places be 

 protected, for such a bank is a constant menace to all the land lying 

 back of it in the valley. Mechanical means of protection are gen- 

 erally expensive and are often not permanently effective. A good 

 method of protecting soft alluvial banks is to make them sloping 

 instead of perpendicular. This may require considerable grading, 

 but it is absolutely necessary. After the bank has been reduced to 

 a slope, the less precipitous the better, the face of it should be thickly 

 planted with willow cuttings. For this purpose any willow material 

 available in the vicinity is suitable. Cuttings from 1-year-old 

 shoots up to stakes several inches in diameter will grow vigorously. 

 In the more exposed places, especially near the water's edge, the 

 larger sets are more satisfactory as they are less liable to be washed 

 out before they have become firmly rooted. Willow is often more 

 serviceable than walls of masonry, and the f acility with which it is 

 reproduced by seed, suckers, sprouts, and cuttings, both naturally 

 and artificially, makes it both inexpensive and effective. 



In places where conditions are more severe the following procedure 

 has been successful: 



Green willow poles 18 to 20 feet long are cut in the spring before 

 growth begins ; the poles are laid on the ground near the bank 2 or 3 

 feet apart with their butts toward the stream; woven wire fencing 

 is then securely fastened to the poles, leaving 2 or 3 feet of the poles 

 projecting below the wire if the margin of the stream is of soft mud 

 and less than that if the bank is firmer. Sections of wire about 100 

 feet long can be handled to the best advantage. After the wire has 

 been fastened to the poles, they are all pushed over the bank together 

 so that the butts of the poles fall and sink into the soft mud at the 

 water's edge. As the banks cave off some of the soil lodges on the 

 wire, partially burying and weighting down the poles, which take 

 root and grow. The wire serves to hold the mass of willows together 

 until they have been firmly rooted. The ends of the wire are made 

 secure by small wire cables running back up the bank and each one 

 held by a " deadman." The caving and erosion of the bank soon round 

 off its top edges and the growing willows catch and hold the soil, 

 giving the bank the proper slope to resist erosion. Planting a few 

 cuttings farther up the bank to hold this slope is often advantageous. 

 This method can be varied by driving shorter posts firmly into the 

 soil at the water's edge, but leaning sonewhat toward the bank, and 

 then attaching the woven wire. This holds the soil as it caves off, and 

 as a slope is established it is planted with cuttings. 



