Some Remarks on the Scope and Character of Research in Soil and Water Conservation

I am sure there is little doubt in the mind of any person in this audience as to the really serious importance of the nation-wide problem with which we are confronted in the conservation of the soils of the United States. During the past few years there has developed an extensive literature on the subject which has brought to our attention, in no uncertain terms, what has happened and what is happening to our most important natural resource. In the course of these critical analyses of the situation, various national, State and private policies of the past that have been so instrumental in guiding our agricultural expansion to its present stage of development, have been reviewed and many of them quite appropriately condemned, in one degree or another, in the light of our present knowledge and viewpoint. Various cultural practices in the field, many of them of long regional standing, likewise have been held up for the critical scrutiny they have long deserved and have been found seriously wanting from a number of standpoints. Following the natural impulse to get started upon the correction of the condition as effectively and as quickly as possible, a number of erosion experiment stations were established. Shortly thereafter, numerous large-scale demonstrations were developed by the Soil Erosion Service and still others are being developed by the Conservation Service in every part of the country. In these latter, effort is being made to apply, over substantial areas, the best known methods of coordinated land use which can be formulated or brought together upon such short notice in a given region. Needless it is to say that many of the methods and practices which it has been found necessary to press into service for this purpose are without adequate experimental background. Perhaps certain phases of the work on the demonstration areas, as well as on the Erosion Stations, may be regarded as based rather largely on the trial and error method. The exigencies of the conditions which have fostered the development of the work have made this necessarily so, for a good and proper program of investigation to cover a field so large can not be developed over night; neither can results from them be forced. A critical review of all phases of the program will show, however, that the work at the erosion stations and on the demonstration areas has been a tremendously important factor in developing the general understanding and concern which now exists in the minds of the people over the serious situation we are facing in soil conservation work.