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   THROUGHOUT agricultural history the landman has forever needed to concentrate his attention on the little things, on the daily chores and the weekly task, and on the differing work of the changing seasons. He has not had the time generally to see or understand the wide and the basic things of agriculture or know the real background of his endeavours. He was too busy just eking out a living. The agricultural development and use of land may cause tremendous changes in the natural environment, and man, with his attention focused on the things which from day to day directly concern him, has at times been overwhelmed by the sudden realisation of the deterioration which he had caused in his environment. Soil erosion, the final result of this deterioration, had become so widespread that it forced him from the land.

   There are examples in history where, under good climatic conditions of gentle and reliable rainfall and land shape not harsh or steep, a stable agriculture was developed, and there are other occasions where in poor or less favourable conditions man has controlled and improved land and founded a permanent agriculture. Still there are many more instances where his agriculture caused wide land deterioration, which, by forcing huge population declines and mass movements, changed the whole course of the history of nations.

   Even in modern times during which the various sciences have more greatly increased their scope as well as their knowledge than during the previous thousand years, agricultural science, like the early farmers, has still concentrated on the things of their special field, and the day-to-day work, and have tended to become even more remote from the broad environmental fields with which they should be most vitally concerned.

   The wide agricultural problem that has to be solved before modern agriculture is safe and permanent is, I believe, the one I have expounded in this book. Agricultural pursuits must be adjusted to become methods which improve the soil so that the stability of the environment is preserved.

   In man's attack on his problems he usually fights the obvious, the results rather than the causes, and through failure progresses to these causes and later to the real solutions. No doubt in the fight against soil erosion the results of erosion were fought and not the causes which he may have little understood.

   All of us are aware that soil erosion has been a problem of ancient civilisations. Since this book and the practical experiments that lie behind it advocate a new approach to land problems, it is desirable that I should set out my views and a little of my experience with soil erosion.

   There are two completely distinct types of man-made soil erosion and they have two different causes.

   The first type is the erosion or washing away of soil and earths and decomposed rock and which is caused by the concentration of water flow. This type of soil erosion is a veritable land erosion and may start anywhere and at anytime. It is generally the result of public and private works that, in breaking both the small and major pattern of water flowing over land, cause new and unnatural concentration of water flow.

   The second type is the soil erosion resulting from an agriculture which is not adjusted to its environment and is caused by the general change and deterioration of the soil's climate. This type of erosion may be local to one farm or regional and widespread. Its direct cause is from farming and grazing methods and practices that cause a loss of soil fertility. The agency which removes the soil is water or wind or both.

   The first type of soil erosion is seen widely in the erosion that has resulted from road building. Wherever roads stretch out to conquer new land great erosion problems have followed. These are caused by diverted drainage, and where the two types of soil erosion affects the one property, then it becomes the most spectacular part of agricultural erosion. It is manifested in the greatly deteriorated landscape and the consequential very large gullies.

   The methods that cure soil erosion depend on the degree to which it has broken the original land forms and profiles. The type of soil erosion that is most widespread in Australia's general agricultural areas still permits reasonable land management and can be cured by methods of land improvement and soil development that need not treat the erosion directly but cures and prevents it as incidental to better farm planning and soil and water management. I believe I have proved in my own work that the Keyline planning and development of land and its soil care is not only the economic and most effective method of preventing or controlling this type of erosion, but also the most profitable and logical.

   Where the degree of soil erosion has reached the stage of gullies and gutters making the more intimate treatment of soil and the satisfactory management of land impossible, then the work is not so much erosion control or soil conservation but becomes land reclamation. This type of destruction is fortunately not extensive in Australia, yet it is seen on some stock routes and other places not directly the responsibility of the landman; however, quite a number of farms are affected by it. The work of reclamation here is a type of land reshaping more in keeping with such construction work as the reshaping of land for an aerodrome than it is erosion control in agriculture.

   If such a deteriorated landscape problem were put forward for Keyline management, then reclamation would proceed as follows: Disregarding the damage, the land shape would be first appraised in the same manner as would be done on a good farm, and, of course, backed up with a knowledge of the climate. Water supply for the farm to be reclaimed would next be studied and determined. If the erosion was such that the general shape could be recovered, the highest planning lines would be marked in, again disregarding the gullies. Next, the area above these lines would be reconstructed as cheaply as possible and preserving in the treated land natural land shapes as disclosed in Chapter VI. This area would be fertilised and planted. The water conservation drain and keyline or highest dam would then be planned and built. The work of land reshaping would continue by proceeding downward with the appropriate Keyline methods, which would be followed throughout the development of the property until a stable fertility was reached.

   There are very many instances where the destruction of land has proceeded to the stage where economic recovery is now considered impossible, and there are two reasons for this view, namely the high cost of recovery and the very limited value of the land when it is stabilised again. However, there may be wider implications than the value of the land, and so on occasions much more money than the land is worth in its recovered state is spent on saving it. Nevertheless, in the Keyline approach to the cost of the actual reconstruction of the land forms (and the cheapest-to-make natural shapes is all that is required) there is the aim that the land will rapidly become more fertile and valuable than previously. While there is earth or decomposed rock material to work with, and in this type of land destruction there usually is, then the recovered land will soon reach its highest development and value.

   Leaving all these aspects of soil erosion, the proposition in farming and grazing is simply to maintain the natural shape and form of land permanently, so that soil erosion is not a factor.

   Prior to the conversion of any land to agriculture, the land was in a certain state of balance. Geological erosion, the very slow movement-of-material via the streams towards the ocean, is generally more than balanced by the decomposition of rocks and the continuous development of new soil. If the hills and primary (and often secondary) valleys were rounded, then the valley transported the water without new rapid erosion. If, in the occupation of the land agriculturally, the environment is not deteriorated, then the land remains stable and the valleys transport the run-off water safely. The land is made quite secure by improving the fertility of the soil in the new farming environment, and by avoiding the uncontrolled concentration of water flow. In Australian conditions farmers usually require more water, and particularly at those times when the natural environment does not provide it, so they should control and conserve the water. This also makes certain that the valley will have less run-off to handle and even at the same time increase its capacity to handle more than it could initially. Farming and grazing, as practices for the management of the environment, will produce a soil more fertile than the original soil and improve the environment beyond its best natural condition. If this does not follow, then farm planning and management are at fault and the farming landscape will not be stable or permanent. However, the stability of farming land is often subject to influences from other land, influences not a factor of the natural landscape, and so, on occasions, unnatural concentration of flow water may enter the land. Such water flow can affect the best of agricultural land. If these inflows are not treated specifically, then wide destruction of the land form may occur. But water is a most valuable primary asset, and so it should be controlled at the immediate point of entry and transported by water conservation drains to a specially constructed storage. If the circumstances are such that water is never in short supply and therefore the inflow cannot be used, then, and only then, should consideration be given to its safe disposal. The first approach may still be one of control at the place where it enters the land.

   Where an erosion gully enters from a road and continues through a property, causing active damage, then an earth dam is planned to first control the water, and in conjunction with a drain on a slight grade, transport the water to a disposal area. The dam and drain may be a very modest structure. A ridge of reasonably uniform shape and one that is suitably pattern-cultivated to transport the water down the ridge centre, is a suitable area, as is also a good valley. Water disposal via a ridge has the great advantage that increasing amounts of water flow down the slope do not cause increasing velocities as other forms of natural or prepared disposal channels may do. The factor that causes water to flow down the centre of a ridge is the reversal of the natural flow path occasioned by the furrows of the special Keyline cultivation pattern. The natural flow path is always away from the neutral line of the ridge and towards the valley, so that water flowing down the neutral line of the ridge is directed there only by the pattern of cultivation. If the pattern has furrows two inches deep, then water cannot flow, for example, four inches deep. This is because the water above the pattern would lose the influence of the pattern and commence to follow its natural flow path as dictated by the shape of the ridge and consequently, by spreading wider and shallower, becomes again influenced by the Keyline pattern of furrows further out from the neutral line of the ridge. Therefore, if a given quantity of water is flowing, it will form a general path down the Keyline pattern-cultivated ridge, and if the volume of water flow is doubled or quadrupled the effect is that the width of the shallow stream increases accordingly. Yet there is not, as in most other methods of water disposal, an increase in the velocity of flow. (See Figs. 4 and 8, Chaptere 6 )

   A general loss of fertility, which has been described as a pre-soil erosion, is not manifested by active and visible soil erosion, but can be seen in the examination of the soil of pasture land by the change in the soil's structure and generally by the decreasing depth at which the main pasture root system lies. This loss of fertility often first discloses itself in declining health of stock and lower stocking capacity with reduced yields. This type of erosion, the very serious forerunner to active soil erosion, can only be cured permanently by, methods which directly improve the fertility, the structure and the depth of the soil. This, however, becomes automatic with the start of the Keyline management of the soil of pasture land. Here again the important effect to be produced is an improvement in the soil climate. While there are other procedures which will assist, the most natural basis for lasting benefit relates to the improvement in the soil when moisture, warmth and air are in better relationship and when they are combined into one single factor.

   There is no further need to discuss the Keyline approach or its solutions to the problems of land or water, as they are seen to be simple and directly effective. Now, if these soil-erosion problems are so simply disposed of as in Keyline, why, then, is there such an emphasis in the minds of so many on the problem of soil erosion, and why have we spent in the Federal and the various State Government departments such a considerable amount of money on soil erosion control or soil conservation? The subject is lightly discussed and dismissed with little comment in Keyline because it has been found that Keyline is quite effective in both curing and preventing soil erosion, and that in this type of development and management of land, soil erosion is not a factor that requires any special consideration. These claims are not made lightly or without realising the earlier seriousness of soil erosion, but from the background of long study and wide experience of both soil erosion itself as a land menace and of soil conservation with its approaches, methods and techniques as a cure of soil erosion. It might be well to review why we had come to be so preoccupied with soil erosion problems.

   To start at the beginning of modern-day soil conservation, wide land surveys were conducted in America to investigate the losses from soil erosion there, and determine the course that events would take if the problem was not attacked in a practical way. Prior to 1930 these reports indicated that about one hundred million acres of once productive land were seriously affected by soil erosion, and even half of it to the stage of complete abandonment. The continuing rate of loss exceeded the equivalent of a million acres of fertile topsoil each year and the rate of loss was sure to increase. However, despite these facts and the lessons of history, there seems to have been no widespread awareness of the march of soil erosion in the new world until what are known as the depression years of the early nineteen thirties. Then in America there started probably the greatest campaign to educate public opinion on the menace of soil erosion than ever had happened before in all agricultural history. No mad scrambling land boom ever approached in publicity the course of the "sale" of the great land menace of soil erosion. No other land subject ever received such wide and popular press support. Then later, when the wonderful press co-operation and response started to die down somewhat there grew up association after association, formed by public-spirited people, who, themselves "sold" on the reality of the menace of soil erosion and the need for action in the matter, wanted to keep it continuously in the public eye.

   America, like the rest of the world, was suffering from the shocking and repeated blows dealt out by the great depression and their unemployment figures ran into many millions. Consequently the great "soil erosion menace" became a boon to many unemployed as the Federal Government, fighting the two national menaces of unemployment and soil erosion, started project after project, all of which had their impetus from these dual menaces to the nation. Agricultural officers were taken from their work in departments and became soil erosion experts as vast sums of money were poured into the battle. For a start the new experts seemed to forget agriculture, but in keeping with the virile spirit with which America tackles her problems when her people are really aroused, many of these officers became instead of agriculturalists, enthusiastic amateur engineers. But the American people were told that she was losing by soil erosion the equivalent of a million acres of fertile top soil every year, and there does not seem much doubt that this figure may have reflected the true position. The new experts therefore were going to fight this great battle and win it, and where should they concentrate their major efforts but on the biggest and best soil erosion gullies. So their requirements in plant and equipment got bigger and bigger until the new experts had tasted to the full the thrill of the direction of huge accumulations of big equipment.

   However, like everything else, these matters were gradually moved to better perspective, and the new soil erosion theorists and their departments commenced to grow up. "Soil erosion" was dropped for "erosion control" and then became "soil conservation". In 1934 authority on these matters of soil conservation was vested in the United States Departments of Agriculture, a saner outlook was restored and soil conservation grew up further, and the panic pessimism that gave it birth has now been almost forgotten. In parts of America the work of the soil conservationist dominated the rural scene, as I have observed in flying over the country; also on another flight I saw more of the devastation of soil erosion than I have noted through the years in Australia.

   The early American campaign against the menace of soil erosion aroused similar action in other countries, and it was not too long before appropriate legislation was enacted in Australian States, with New South Wales in the van.

   Here in Australia, however, we did not have the spending at that time of even reasonable sums of money, and little, if any, equipment was forthcoming. By contrast in 1957 the Soil Conservation Department of N.S.W. spent the large sum of half a million pounds. Shortly afterwards Australia was in the second world war and it was not until 1946 that our soil conservation departments really got under way. In the meantime books on the subject became available for study and Australians had been sent to America to learn the American methods and become soil erosion experts.

   This type of critical review is only possible after the event, but the "selling" of soil erosion as a great national menace had its effect on myself as well as hundreds of thousands of other Australians. In earlier times other nations, even whole civilisations, had experienced the same problem as America, and the march of soil erosion had won. Now for the first time in history a great nation was organising its forces to win the battle against soil destruction, and it was a battle with the outcome deadly serious. These matters are covered widely in other books, so they need not be pursued here. However, like so many others at that time, I read these books and many articles and references to soil erosion which were contained in the press and in magazines. I looked for the signs of soil erosion wherever I travelled on my mining work and talked about the subject to those whom I met who were interested.

   In Australia there were evidences everywhere of the real truth of the menace of soil erosion. The menace was indeed very real, and farmers and graziers, too, were convinced and worried by the great problem of soil loss. Two outstanding impressions of those days remain. One was the first almost hopeless type of pessimism of the soil conservation concept, which in Australia extended among many classes of people, including landmen, the new soil conservationists and the higher official or Government administrative officer.

   The other impression was of my own query then, and it has not been forgotten. This related to the almost complete disregard for the run-off water which was generally the instrument of the final removal of the soil in this soil erosion menace to which we were newly awakened. On the one hand I was very familiar with the practice of the mining man conserving every drop of water in order to create his own type of soil erosion in his sluicing operations, for instance, so that he could recover the "values" in gold or tin. On the other hand, the agricultural land of the farmer and grazier was allowed to sluice away in soil erosion with no values being recovered by anyone. Then along came the soil conservationist to tell the farmer how to get rid of the water "safely". Here is seen also, an instance of this illogical division of authorities in purely agricultural matters which I have previously mentioned. If the Government agriculturalist or the soil conservationist, or any other authority then had the full control of the two aspects of the problem, namely land and water, our agriculture must have gained considerably. Surely the farmers and graziers needed the water that was washing away their soil. There was as much positive evidence of the need for the water, in the many poor crops and dried-out pastures to be seen, as there was of the accelerating march of soil erosion, and I asked myself this question, "Why wasn't all the water conserved?" However, I had to buy land, build many more dams, not for mining but now for agriculture, make use of many of the practices of soil erosion control and spend a lot of money on experiments before I had the final answer to just this one question, "Why wasn't all the water conserved?" I had become a farmer and grazier and a land owner and made my first practical use of the methods of soil erosion control although it was by no means my first experiences in the conservation and control of water.

   Like many another practical man and farmer at that time, I was prepared to be shown and told how to apply the methods of erosion control. I was told, too, but certainly not what I expected or wanted to hear. The first Government Soil Conservationists visited my property at my request in 1944 and some months before a bushfire swept through the area. It was the worst fire in the district's history. Now at that time I'was not only a very enthusiastic believer in the need for some planned and positive action against the menace of land deterioration, but I was in a position to do something about it, at least on my own property. I had plenty of equipment of the type needed and which was then generally not available to the official soil conservationist, and I knew how to use it. I thought, of course, that the bulldozer was the most powerful implement for soil erosion control. Now I know that the powerful factor that will cure and prevent soil erosion is the little, the very little and at that time neglected things that should be just part of all good farming and grazing practice, and not the big bulldozer, which, of course, is a wonderful aid to the large-scale development of land. However, I was a practical mining man and knew, as I have said, earth, rock and water, and it seemed to me that this experience and my less powerful equipment was just what was needed. Also, as a mining man, I was somewhat of an optimist and in keeping with my profession. But imagine my reaction on being told by the soil conservationists that there was little that could be done for my property. True, they said, contour drains could be put in to stop the further erosion of the soil and the erosion gullies in all the valleys could be filled up, and probably would wash out again. No! The land could not be plowed, with the exception of an area which they pointed out of about 40 acres. The rest was too steep and would wash away if broken with the plow. The land was not any good and never would be and it was not worth doing much about it; that was their general attitude. But what about the water I could save in dams? It seemed that water was no good for irrigation unless the land was river flats. However, the pessimism of those days to the problems of land did not affect me much, and, of course, not all soil conservationists were quite so pessimistic. However, these soil conservationists were almost right and they were only reflecting this hopeless and generally pessimistic feeling of the times about soil erosion. Had not the greatest name in American soil conservation said more than once in the first few pages of his text, book (almost the bible of soil conservation) that once the fertile top soil is gone it is gone forever, and that there is nothing that can be done about it, "so we must save the soil that is left". Again, that it is just as impossible to remake a farm once the soil has washed away as it is to make a motor car without the necessary steel and rubber and wood. On top of this attitude, the shale soils of the County of Cumberland, it was said, had never been, good enough for pasture improvement, which fact was not known to me at the time I bought the land. These things are mentioned to show the general background at the time.

   The next few years were busy ones for me, and I persisted in my belief that I could eventually make a thousand acres of fertile soil on my property. I put in the usual structures and devices of soil conservation all over the farm, but there was this notable difference in my application of the methods, namely, some of the drains of soil conservation were constructed as water conservation drains to carry the run-off water into dams for irrigation. The first dams with their water conservation drains were built before the fire of December, 1944. This early idea, a basic approach and feature of Keyline planning, received some publicity as water harvesting nine years later, when it was adopted at a farm belonging to Sydney University and following a visit to my farm by its manager. For the next few years, even with some successes, it still appeared that the soil conservationists' idea that my soil would never be good may have been correct.

   I still believed in the concept of soil conservation and concentrated on improving its methods and trying to devise ideas for better land planning. I did make some progress in this direction. This only led to my abandonment of the whole concept of soil conservation and I filled in miles of my soil conservation drains. I had spent a substantial amount of money and made many experiments, but, like some mistakes, these were valuable lessons. I had tried out soil conservation thoroughly and probably learned much, and now I had abandoned the whole concept.

   While I was moving from experiments to failure and away from soil conservation the work of soil conservation departments continued to spread in Australia. The emphasis was still too much on water flow as a menace; water had to be got away from the farm land safely, was the general attitude of soil conservationists. Contour drains, contour banks, absorption banks, pasture furrows, grassed waterways became widely-known terms and the use of these structures spread slowly. Likewise, the soil conservation departments grew and spread as large amounts of money were allotted to them.

   On occasions rather amazing things began to happen on some properties on which soil conservation methods were used. While the extra water held in some of the structures prevented erosion and increased production, it also caused an improvement in the fertility of the soil, yet there appeared to be a reluctance to appreciate this fact. It was not recognised on the part of the soil conservationists generally. Perhaps the phenomena was too strange against the views expressed in their textbooks, which said that soil lost to erosion was land destroyed permanently. Even today this attitude persists, and an article on soil conservation, recently published, repeats the belief of the earlier days of soil conservation, that soil lost can never be recovered.

   There could be little doubt of the fact that soil conservation generally worked and that it did stop soil erosion where the methods were applied properly. When some of the earlier attempts of soil conservationists made matters a lot worse it was not of any importance but for the fact that mistakes are very valuable teachers to those who will learn. I do not want to belittle any of the successes of soil conservation. So many of them were more wonderful than the official soil conservationist seemed to appreciate. In my experience the official soil conservationist has never taken sufficient notice of the actual soil changes that often took place beneath his feet where soil conservation practices were applied. He has his book and a few techniques and the tendency was to apply these almost willy nilly to any type of eroded land. However, experience of soil conservation work is not always a happy one, and every farm is a separate problem. A farmer and his wife visited my farm and with my wife we walked to the eight-inch lockpipe valve below a dam and, turning it on, commenced irrigating. When the farmer saw the water spread he asked how many such dams we had and their cost. He told me he had spent more money on a similar area of his property in similar rainfall conditions, on soil conservation work, and could not turn on a one-inch tap. Again, very recently, a grazier with a large property said he put in "soil conservation" in one large paddock a few years ago. He called it the unpopular paddock, because no one wanted to work there or even ride there; it was too uncomfortable, with its big banks and drains. In learning anything, mistakes are always made, and so the costs of improved farming practices are paid for by many landmen.

   In America, under the guidance of agriculture, the methods of soil conservation fell into better perspective.

   Gone is the reliance on the contour bank and the pasture furrow; and the large absorption bank, with its associated channel, once nearly as great a desecration of land as the erosion gully itself, is almost outlawed and rarely in evidence. Now better farming is practised with more complete fertilisation, including the wider use of green manures; with alternate strips of cleanly cultivated and close-growing crops and grasses, stretching across the land, and often dominating the landscape for many hundreds of miles; and the rotation of grass and crops go hand in hand with improved grazing management. Soil conservation, as in its original conception, has largely disappeared, although part of the name lingers still in the newer term "conservation farming".

   Many Australians realise now that "wise land use" is not much use to a farmer if it means growing only grass when he wants crops as well as grass. Agriculture was faulty, but now it has improved and it is still improving, and that is the simple answer to what is wise in land use. "Plowing grasslands to grow cereals", once a widely publicised soil erosion cause, does not now obtain. Again, it is how the plowing is done and how the farm is managed, and so it becomes just another matter of agricultural practice. "Grass and trees to replace plowland", another early soil conservationist catchcry, is no answer to soil erosion nowadays when it does not suit the farmer. Good plowing and good farming enters into the picture and are here to stay. Forests are not the answer to soil erosion when we see forest land eroding; good management is the only way here also, and "hill country left timbered to protect the land" is no use to the farmer who wants grass for cattle, especially, also, if the trees are not of any value. No longer is it recommended that the farm be adjusted to suit the early ideas of soil conservation, but rather the profession of the land is adjusting itself better in its environment.

   Soil conservation as an approach was never really necessary. Indeed, the accumulations of its mechanical procedures are not its own, but are borrowed from agriculture, ancient and modern irrigation systems, and from mining. To many laymen the use of the contour in agriculture is the invention, even the great inspiration, of soil conservation, but nothing could be further from the truth. In the study of aerial photography of Great Britain parallel contour lines were found, lines unseen from ground observation, which are interpreted to mean that contour working of land must have been practised in early Roman times, and the contour as a means of illustrating topography is not new. No! Soil conservation was certainly not born of invention or inspiration, but rather of such forces as panic and pessimism; and perhaps most of all as far as America was concerned it was seen as an aid to the spending of large sums of Government money to fight unemployment and depression. It may be considered that my rejection of the term "soil conservation" is just a matter of words only, but it is more to the associations which the term raises that I object than to the words themselves.

   My desire is to eliminate entirely from our thinking the memory of the battle to save the soil, the thought of large sums of money used and the general air of depression, all of which we now know to have been completely unrealistic.

   So soil conservation has performed this great service to land. Because of its mistakes, failures and misconceptions, as well as some successes, but most of all by the wide publicity which it gave to the menace of soil erosion, it not only made the landman aware of the danger and the need that something should be done about it, but widely disturbed the general public as well. This constitutes, in my opinion, its great achievement and at the same time cancels out the need for "soil conservation". But so unrealistic, pessimistic and exaggerated were some of the early statements on soil erosion that soil conservation agencies moved into a place at one time where they regarded themselves, and were considered by some others, as more important than the whole of agriculture itself. There has been a tendency also at times for some soil conservationists to use their position and their popular publicity to exaggerate land problems in order to show a need for the soil conservationists and to try to make a permanent place for themselves even in such matters as national land policy. However, in a country like Australia it is not the inherent pessimism latent in old-time soil conservation theories that should influence policy in such directions. The more practical developmental approach of the experienced agriculturalist should be followed in the broad aspects of land policy. Surely there is now no cause for pessimism in our agricultural outlook! Soon it will be realised more fully that while it is right and proper to conserve water and to conserve fodder, the landman's job is not so much to conserve soil as it is to develop soil, to improve his soil and to make it more fertile than it ever was. Soil is not dead, inert matter; it is alive and vital. It must be so managed as to improve its life so that the soil will deepen. Then the farming landscape will develop as it should do. But this also will have been some measure of achievement for soil conservation itself. In the meantime, again in my opinion, there is a great deal of money now being largely wasted in Soil Conservation Departments and too many excellent men being employed less effectively and beneath their true capacities by being designated merely soil conservationists. There are all too few of such excellent men concerned in the broader fields of agriculture, where they are sorely needed, and their talents and their usefulness should not be, even in small part, wasted to the nation.

   "Soil erosion", as represented by land administration and sponsored farm practices and reclamation, was over publicised, became much too pre-occupied with the mechanical side and was too wasteful of public money. The social problem of the great depression in America, which "soil erosion" was expected to cure, no longer obtains. The newer form of "soil conservation" likewise has outlived its usefulness, s ince, quite apart from the improvements in farming and grazing, the successful soil conservationist naturally works himself out of a job; and this is equally true of Soil Conservation Departments.

   What is the alternative? In Australia it is not desirable that Soil Conservation Departments be eliminated, but that they should be given a new orientation and a new attachment.

   Agriculture is growing up and extending, and it must take a wider and more comprehensive view of all its own functions. If Keyline or any other equally good and broad environmental approach to land and water can automatically control soil erosion, eliminate the disastrous effects of droughts by preventing the waste of water and floods, and increase productivity, then the large staffs of Soil Conservation Departments could be very profitably employed on expounding the new approach and teaching it to farmers and graziers, and thereby adding greatly to the national benefit. Such staffs, however, will require to return eventually to the agricultural fold, since the new approach to land and water and with which this book is particularly concerned, makes it abundantly clear that land and its problems must be seen as a whole and not as separate unrelated and often antagonistic aspects of public administration.

   As for the farmer and grazier, they are already on the way to the new agriculture and bid fair to take advantage of every new opportunity which is offered to them.