SOIL EROSION

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 33, 25 March 1942, Page 2

SOIL EROSION

LESSONS FROM AUSTRALIA

REMEDIAL MEASURES

The growing interest ci Australian land men in problems of soil conservation makes a volume on the subject by Mr H. H. Bennett, one of the world's leading authorities, of particular inteicst at the present time. Mr Bennett, who is Chief ol the Soil Conservation Service ot U.S.A., was responsible for inaugurating and directing a nation-wide attack on the problem of erosion in that country. He planned and controlled the research work on soil and water losses, the effect of slope, soil type, surface cover and land treatment, as well as the devising, perfecting and applying the widely varying remedial measures designed to suit the differences in environmental conditions j To the individual landowner troubled by erosion there is a fund of useful practical information in this book regarding methods which have been successful in America, and which, with slight modification to suit local farming and environmental conditions, should prove successful here. The causes and effects of erosion are illuminatingly discussed and illustrated and the remedies authoritatively outlined.

The process of erosion, it is pointed cut, impoverishes not only the land, but those who live on it, as well as the communities, toAvns and cities dependent in part or wholly upon the welfare of the farmer. There are important human repercussions. Uncontrolled erosion by reducing the productivity of the farm, inundates the land, user with debt; it forces him to leave the farm, or strands him on depleted land as a subsoil farmer, or possibly a public dependent.

It will come as a shock to many Australians and New Zealanders to learn that approximately 45 per rent, of all American farm lands is now operated by tenant farmers. This increase in large measure is due to erosion. „ A permanent agriculture is possible even in countries where the land is highly susceptible to erosion provided the community is willing to pay the price of protecting it and provided also that this protection is applied in time.