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 mere 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 facility 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. 
