No seeing man can
travel through the United States without being struck with the enormous
and unnecessary loss of fertility by easily preventable soil wash. The
soil so lost, as in the case of many other wastes, becomes itself a
source of damage and expense, and must be removed from the channels of
our navigable streams at an enormous annual cost. The Mississippi River
alone is estimated to transport yearly four hundred million tons of
sediment, or about twice the amount of material to be excavated from the
Panama Canal. This material is the most fertile portion of our richest
fields, transformed from a blessing to a curse by unrestricted erosion.
The destruction of forage plants by overgrazing has resulted, in the
opinion of men most capable of judging, in reducing the grazing value of
the public lands by one-half. This enormous loss of forage, serious
though it be in itself, is not the only result of wrong methods of
pasturage. The destruction of forage plants is accompanied by loss of
surface soil through erosion; by forest destruction; by corresponding
deterioration in the water supply; and by a serious decrease in the
quality and weight of animals grown on overgrazed lands.
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