Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 19, Number 10, DeMotte, Jasper County, 4 February 1949 — Record For Soil Conservation Farmers Set [ARTICLE]

Record For Soil Conservation Farmers Set

Survey Shows Jasper County Easily Kept Pace With Statewide Trend During the past year, farmers of Indiana set an all-time record in putting real soil conservation on the land, Kenneth Welton, State Conservationist, reported today. And in the Jasper County Soil Conservation District, local farmers easily kept pace with the new statewide trend. Silas J. Smucker, of the U. S. Soil Conservation Service says, “In this District, local farmers speeded up their application of conservation methods during the past year to a noticeable degree. As an example, these district cooperators put 58 acres under contour cultivation, started 271 acres of cover crops and drained 1,663 acres. Our farmers are getting the conservation job done at a more rapid pace than ever before, but we look for even greater progress during 1949.” At Lafayette, the State Conservationist has just summed up results of a survey of statewide progress among Soil Conservation District cooperators for the past year. He said: “We believe farmers of Indiana have set a record be proud of. They put 30,000 acres of land on the contour during 1948, which brings the state’s total up to 122,700 acres- They added 14,700 acres of cover crops, increasing the total for Indiana to 49,000 acres. During the year 11,900 acres of Indiana pastures were improved and 20,000 acres of land was made more productive by drainage. Current state totals reported by district cooperators are: Improved pastures, 38,000; farm drainage, 66,400 acres.” “‘Farmers of this State,” Welton said, “organized one new soil Conseivation - District during the year, making the Indiana total now 41.” “6,400 farmers in this State have now developed complete farm conservation plans, with the technical assistance of the U. S. Soil Conservation Service and these plans cover 942,000 acres. During the past 12 months alone, Service technicians helped 1,200 famers develop complete plans which increase farm income as much as a third, control erosion and hold more rainfall on the land. They also gave technical assistance to 600 other farmers with one or more conservation practices which in most cases are gradually developed into a complete plan,” Welton explained. At Regional Headquarters of the U. S. Soil Conservation Service, in Milwaukee, reports show the increased impetus in getting conservation applied on the land was general in 1549. R. H. Musser, who directs the technical program for eight cornbelt states, including Indiana, said farmers throughout the entire region hit a much faster pace in getting the conservation job done during the past two years. Farmers also made marked progress in organizing new Soil Conservation Districts There are now 459 Districts in the eight states which includes Illinois, Indiana, lowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri,

Ohio and Wisconsin, and 36 of these were organized by the Cornbelt farmers during 1948. Musser said: “More conservation was applied on the land throughout this region in 1948 than in any other year since the Service was created. As a.n example of just one phase of the work, cornbelt farmers put 447000" additional acres more than 1947. And 1947 was rearded as a banner year. “Progress during the past 12 months was 10 percent above the previous record in 1947 and 30 pecent above 1946. In these eight states, the Service has so far given technical assistance to 78,825 farmers who have developed complete farm conservation plans covering 12,604,000 acres of the country’s richest farm land. Of this total, 15,000 plans were developed in 1948, and the Service also assisted 12,000 other farmers with One or more starting practices.