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Even though you depend on the soil only to keep you alive and for your job or business, you still get much more from the land. Actually, your relatively high standard of living, the “American Way” of which we are all justly proud, depends on productive soil. There are approximately 6 million farms in the U.S. Each of these farms produces sufficient food and fiber for the farm family and for 17 additional people who do not live on the farm. This means that, you as one of the 17, so not have to grow your own food, but can produce other things. In short, it means, an advance from primitive conditions when everyone lived on the land and produced his own food. This is our way of life.
Good, high producing soil is necessary to maintain our high standard of living. Poor soil brings about that ugly word “scarcity.” And scarcity means runaway prices and more controls. When scarcity exists freedom of even the most personal kind may be restricted. Our “American Way” depends on abundance not scarcity. Abundance is made possible by our natural resources, the most important of which is soil.
Our soils most of them having been farmed for about 200 years are being depleted at a very rapid rate. The factor that is largely responsible for this is water erosion. Erosion attacks the land as cancer attacks the human body. It is a gradual process and frequently is not evident until in the latter and severe stages. In fact, many farmers don’t realize that some* thing is eating away their valuable top soil until crop yields drop sharply. Erision occurs during rains and is most evident immediately afterwards.
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