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About Southern Oregon miner. (Ashland, Or.) 1935-1946 | View Entire Issue (April 26, 1935)
Southern Oregon Miner SUCCESSOR TO JACKSONVILLE MINER EIGHT PAGES COMICS AND FEATURES LAND MADE VALUELESS BY WIND EROSION By WILLIAM UTLEY HIS buffalo gran* should never l>e plowed, The In ml will Just dry up mid llie wind will blow li away, mid you with It." Thal'a wlmt lhe cattlemen of southern Colorado told lhe home ateadera fill years nun. The home ateudera plowed the buffuIo grass Today the wind lina blown away the lund uixl ninny have been forced to move. Ilnd the farmers or the Great I'lnlna of Kansas, Nebraska. Okla homa, Texas, Arkansas and N'ebraa kn cultivated Ihelr lands with a little more forealght In the yearn gone by. they would not today, |ier ha pa. have been forced to watch the great rei. mid yellow plague of noli eronlon blow their farms from the face of the earth -or more lit erally, blow Hie face of the earth from their farm«, which In Hie nmne thing. During the World war wheat prlcea soared sky high. Short- grana prairie» were the only virgin soil which remained for wheat pro- duction, ami to these pinion rushed thousands of farmers with their plow a. The harvest wan rich In deed, with several aeanolin of good rnlnfall. Then came yearn of drouth. With them was the return to some thing like normal—and lean In wheat prlcea. Whut land win not abandoned wua farmed only tn a haphazard manner. Wheat acreage wan further de creased 15 per cent by the admin Intrntlon'n wheat allot mi nt program Production ceaaeil on much of thin land; the remainder got very lit tie attention. Probably ti.ls was the land where the recent dust storms tlmt began to get "body.” With thia power of aggravation It an easy mat ter for the duet-laden winds to col led more and more of their devas tating burden from the land In went ern Kansas which In handled by non resident farmern who "h.ig In” Ihelr crop by the •'cut and cover” method of farming which coxern large ter ritories quickly, but so poorly that the topsoil blown easily, and when it starts to blow, no one in there to atop It. Dust Travels Far. From thin ntart the storms which, during March, raged al terrific heights for from four to twelve days, spread through neighboring states. Huge cloud pulls of white, yellow nnd red black dunt reached as fur a* Denver, St. Louin, Clove land and even Washington In a weird reversal of the "back-to-the noil" movement Hint struck the more unfortunate element of met ropolltan populations a little while hack. In the stricken Great Plains area highway traffic was stopped to pre vent accident. Schools nnd bust liens houses shut Ihelr doors. Health officers warned everyone to stay nt home. If possible. Itnlhvny truf fle was stilled. Several children nnd adults died of "dust pneu monia.'* Live stock refused to ent grass and liny even when they could tind It under the drifts of eroded soil that were so high In ninny ¡daces Hint one could walk up a drift to the r<»of of a tall barn. Even In the cities It was necessary to sleep and often work with wet cloths tied over nose and mouth. In Chicago nnd central Illinois the dnst united with showers of rnln nnd Hie weather man mild to the Inhabitants, “Here's mud In your eye!” They soon found out lie meant It only too literally. The great storm of Muy 11, 1984, which stretched fimm Montana to the Atlantic and hung a 10,000-ton cover of dust over the National Capital was something of n calain Ity. The storm of March. 1988, was a major catastrophe. Fertile ureas, once garden spots, became, ns the dust clouds gained momentum, like barren deserts. Good farmers an well uh bud were driven from their hind and their homes, knowing not whither to turn. Now the govern ment Is beginning to wake to a full realization of the seriousness of the problem of erosion. Fifty million acres of crop pro ducing land have been destroyed In the lulled States by wind and water soil erosion. Another 120.- (MIO.OOO acres lune lost the topsoil, and 100,000,0*11) additional acres nre approaching this condition, according to the Department of Ag- est service, the bureau of ciiemls try and soils, and the bureau of agricultural engineering. One million dollars was the amount agreed upon for Doctor Tug well's crows to begin work, after a visit to Washington of Gov. Alfred M. Landon of Kansas to ¡dead for funds for the project. The FERA expressed willingness for Its work era to lie turned over to the Job. The work will be extended over the states badly affected. Weapons of War. Chief weapons In the war against wind erosion will be "listing*' and plowing metliods which have worked out satisfactorily In the Texas Pan handle demonstration center of the soil erosion service. Farmers and the states themselves will furnish the fleet of 2U,O0O tractors neces sary for the Job. "Listing" consists of ¡flowing deep furrows across fields at right angles to prevail Ing winds In affected areus; this tends to brenk the force of the wind and cause It to drop dnst that It j Projects nre also under way In nearly every part of the country to defeat "gully" erosion—that caused by the washing of storm waters— which has destroyed 35,000.000 acres of good farm land. An Inter eating step in this direction was u law passed In Wisconsin In late March, which exempts fenced, wood ed slopes from taxation. One Hundred Mile Barrier. Wind removed Hie topsoil of the Great plains—and air, coupled with sunshine, will replace It. If the right vegetation Is planted, accord ing to the New York state college of forestry at .Syracuse university, but It Is a process that will take many decades to finish. Prof. S. O. Heiberg sayi that 10 per cent of the topsoil Is decayed plant matter. The other Do per cent Is actual air nnd sunshine converted Into loam —carbon extracted from tne air by plants In breathing carbon dioxide Into sugars and starches, which re main there Joining the combat against wind erosion, the forest service will set up a $15,000,000 shelter-belt of trees, to stretch from North Da koto to the Texas Panhandle. This riculture. A total of 75 per cent of all the farm land used for clean- tilled crops Is subject to erosion and damage, which lhe department estimates nt $10.000,000 n yenr. Causes Heavy Lors. The 3.000.000.000 tons of soil lost every year through erosion would till a train of freight cars that would encircle the world 37 times nt the equator, says IL E. Uhland, of the United States soli croslor service, lie pointed out that figures of loss do not take Into account the dam age done to highways, railways, res- ervolrs, streams, ditches nnd hnr- bora. He said Hint northern Mis souri's 50 per cent loss of fertile top surface soil represents more than SO ¡»er cent fertility wastage because In tin top four or five Inches of the original soil was concentrated a very large pnrt of the readily available plant nutrients. He de clared that the soli Is lost ns sure ly ns If It were burned In a Are. “Unless Immediate steps are taken and this rapid destruction Is stopped by 1080,” said Mr. Uh land. "Missouri will have to pro duce the major portion of her crops on one-fifth of the Innd now on crops." The Missouri condition Is. of course, lyplcnl of the whole stricken area. The work of erosion control, be fore the latest tragedy, was spread among the Department of Agricul ture. the Deportment of the In terior nnd the Civilian Conserva tion corps. To meet the present crisis all erosion control has been placed under the Department of Agriculture with Rexford Guy Tug well. undersecretary, supervising the work. He will unify the efforts of lhe Interior department soil erosion control, the AAA, the for Top, Ranch in Colorado Piled High With Dust. Below, Left Dr. Rexford Tugwell, in Charge of Erosion Control. Right, City Folks Also Have Their Battle With Dust ts carrying. This Is Governor Lan don's favored method. Nebraska urges Its fnrmers to plnnt soil-rotating crops and grasses. Texas would plnnt sorghum, which retains soil and moisture. It is advisable to use mnehines which do not pulverize the soil, but de velop a cloddy and roughened sur face. The soil should be cultivated at the proper time to conserve what moisture it contains. Machinery used should tie of the kind tlmt will Incorporate stubble and other plant residues In the surface soil. The Fort Hays (Kan.) agricultural experiment station advises the re planting of all eroded land which wns once grazing country with buf falo grass, and has perfected a method for the replanting. In an attempt to learn the true origin of dust storms and try to put an end to them, the federal gov ernment has begun a soli erosion project at Huron, S. D. In addi tion, there are 180,000 acres of land In South Dakota where the soil erosion service will try to build a barrier to wind erosion and build up the soil by terracing, strip crop ping, counter-cultivation and mois ture cultivation. forest barrier. 100 miles wide and more than 1,500 miles long, follow ing roughly the line of 18 Inches rainfall, is Intended to restore the water level. Improve living condl tions within the belt, act as a snow fence and hold wind-blown dust. During the next ten years the for est service will plant 3.500,000.000 trees in hundreds of narrow strips, each a hundred feet wide and a mile apart. Only the trees suitable to the climate will be chosen, and there will be gaps in the ranks, where the soil Is too poor to Justify ¡flanting. The recent dust storms and the terrible havoc In their wake are by no means peculiar to America, says the National Geographic society, lhe same thing has happened In Syria. Palestine nnd North Africa. Experts say that such regions, where the rainfall Is less than 25 Inches a year, should be left to live stock nnd not cultivated. Dnrwin reported that In South America, during the seasons of 1827-1880. so much dust was blown about that boundaries were ob scared and property rights con fused. In October. 1928, chocolate dust from Australia stained the snow peaks of New Zealand, 1,500 miles away. In the spring of the same year, some 15,000,000,000 tons of earth from the Ukraine were scattered over Europe: In the Ukraine a reforestation program similar to that planned by our for est service was used to combat wind erosion. The Sahara Is the source of sup ply for most of the Eur<q>ean dust storms. Hot sirocco winds carry the dust over the Mediterranean and northward as far as the Baltic. China is famed for dust storms. In winter they sweet» over the North China plain, covering trees, houses, crops and people with yel low sediment. Dust storms of an other age built the Ixtess highlands that lie between the North China plain and the deserts of central Asia. This fertile, yellow earth, often reaching a depth of Sts) feet, covers thousands of square miles In the northern provinces. Crops may be raised on loess without fer tilizing; wind renews the soil as the Nile does in Egypt. The flne, yellow slit has a tendency to split In a vertical direction, furrowing the region with steep cliffs and can yons. The natives often carve cave dwellings In these cliffs, climbing t«> the roofs of their homes to plow their fields. To look at them coldly, such dust storms as we have had may be blessings in disguise, according to J. C. Mehler. secretary of the Kan sas board of agriculture. They will be, says he. If they lead farmers to adopt dlversilled farming, turn ing much of the land back to graz Ing. They will also ¡»rove beneficial In Inaugurating tillage methods which will cut down the loss from soil blowing. Dust storms in northeastern Colo rado have been haled with delight by archeologists. They have taken severnl inches of dirt off buried In dian treasures, revealing new stores [ of spearheads, scrapers, stone knives, hand grinding stones and , howls, nnd fragments of Indian pot tery. The latest storms, combined with the erosion of other winds In I the last yenr. have caused the citl- | zens of Cornish, a village 20 miles northeast of Greeley, to hold a sec ond Stone age fair. Since the first I fair last year new discoveries of Folsom and Yuma arrow ¡mint frag ments have been uncovered. The Folsom work is said by exi»erts in archeology to be 20,000 years old. The fair last year was a tremen dous success and attracted scores of exhibitors. Relief from the terrible drouths which have helped to make ¡»owder of the soil in recent seasons Is promised by John B. Kincer, head of the climate and crop weather service of the United States wcatli er bureau. Kincer. who does not believe In definite changes In ell mate, but rather In definite cycles of rainfall variations, holds to the view that the United States has been In the descending curse of a "moisture cycle” for the last 25 yearn. An illuminating sidelight on city folks’ appreciation of the rigors of the dust storms was revealed to the writer while dining recently In a metropolitan restaurant. I com plained to m.v waitress that the spinach was gritty. •Thar.k the saints yez are eatln' It here," she replied In her best Hi bernlan brogue. "Bhwat if yez were eatln' ft out in Kansas!” ® Wigiirn Xew au JU'ftr Union