Page:Tree Crops; A Permanent Agriculture (1929).pdf/34

 Greece, once so great, is shockingly ruined by soil wash. In parts of Europe people even pound stone to get a little bit of loose material in which plant roots can work.

In our own South millions of acres are already ruined, and the same destructive agency has caused ruin and abandonment of land in Ohio, Illinois, Indiana—indeed, in every one of our states. The total of this destruction has been estimated at 16,600 square miles, equal to the cultivated area of England. And yet, as human history goes, we came to America only yesterday.

If we think of ourselves as a race, a nation, a people that is to occupy its country generation after generation, we must change some of our habits or we shall inevitably experience the steadily diminishing possibility of support for man.

How does it happen that the hill lands have been so frightfully destroyed by agriculture? The answer is simple. Man has carried to the hills the agriculture of the flat plain. In hilly places man has planted crops that need the plow; and when a