More earth has been washed from the hillsides of our country during the last fifty years than during thousands of years before white people came. The farm lands have been injured, the bays have been made shallower, and many river channels have been so filled up that it is more difficult to navigate them now than it was in the early days.
The farmer, the stockman, the lumberman, and the miner has each been selfishly doing his share in the destruction of the soil. Each one has thought only of how he could make the most money in the shortest time. It has not occurred to them that they are making it difficult for their children and grandchildren to live.
In the Southern states thousands of acres are being gullied by the rains, and the soil destroyed. The floods of spring have become worse in late years, because of the destruction of the forest cover in the Appalachian Mountains. Buildings and bridges are frequently carried away, and gravel and boulders are washed over the rich bottom lands.
In the mountains of far-away Italy the soil is poor, and so are the people. They have cut down nearly all the trees and for hundreds of years the brush and grass have been eaten so closely by the sheep and goats that few roots remain to hold the soil. It does not need to rain heavily there to cause the rivers to become muddy and swollen. The soil which once covered the slopes has been carried to the bays, and now there is land where ships floated two thousand years ago.
U. S. Forest Service
Terraces of rock built by natives of China to aid in holding the soil.
In Spain so much of the best soil has been lost that the people now do not raise enough food to support themselves, and much has to be imported from other lands.
France is a rich country still, in spite of the cutting of so much of the forest and the careless pasturing of the mountain slopes. The people are industrious and hard working and thus make a living in spite of the loss which they are suffering.