While it is raining, let us fill a bottle from some muddy stream and allow it to stand until the water settles. In the bottom will then appear a layer of fine mud, or silt as it is usually called. How much soil do you suppose the rivulets washed from my garden and from yours during the last severe storm? How much do you suppose all the rivulets which make up the rivers of your state washed from all the gardens and fields during the same storm? Make a guess and then multiply your answer by the number of storms in one year and that by fifty years, and you will get a quantity greater than you would believe possible.
This is the way Nature takes her toll for our carelessness. So quietly does she do it that often the farmer does not have any idea of what is happening. She is like a thief that comes and steals his goods while he is sleeping.
Bailey Willis
The soil on the hillsides of China is being washed away because of the thoughtlessness of the people.
When the farmer finally awakes and begins to wonder why his crops grow smaller each year, he has already lost the cream of his soil. He must at once stop plowing the steep hillsides and leaving the ground bare for the winter rains to wash it away. To save the slopes he can either terrace them or he can sow grass or clover, which will form a sod and hold the soil. If the farmer can get peas, beans, alfalfa, or clover to grow upon his wasted lands, they will make it fertile again, for these plants have the wonderful power of taking nitrogen from the air and storing it in the soil.
American Forestry Association
The farmer who owns this land will soon be made poor because of his carelessness in destroying the covering of the soil.