to hold the land: soil erosion, agricultural scientists, and the development...

To Hold the Land: Soil Erosion, Agricultural Scientists, and the Development of ConservationTillage TechniquesAuthor(s): Philip J. NelsonReviewed work(s):Source: Agricultural History, Vol. 71, No. 1 (Winter, 1997), pp. 71-90Published by: Agricultural History SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3744686 .Accessed: 10/02/2012 04:10

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To Hold the Land:

Soil Erosion, Agricultural Scientists, and the Development of

Conservation Tillage Techniques

PHILIP J. NELSON

Since World War II, the rapid and often stunning changes in American

agriculture have generally been based on the mechanical, chemical, and ge?

netic technologies usually associated with so-called "industrial farming."

Paralleling the technological revolution and borrowing from it, a second

agricultural revolution produced an extraordinary effort toward conserv-

ing soil and inventing new soil-saving practices and tillage equipment. In

the short span of sixty years (1920s to 1980s), the general American agri?

cultural community moved from little or nominal knowledge about soil

conservation to sophisticated, integrated soil-holding systems, in most in?

stances driven by the determined research efforts of soil scientists and agri?

cultural engineers.

Although soil erosion has been a major agricultural problem in almost

all farming systems and areas ofthe country for centuries, limited progress

was made in soil and water conservation until the advent of federal soil

conservation programs in the 1930s.1 Galvanized in part by the hard

lessons ofthe Dust Bowl, soil and tillage researchers played a central role in

the development of what are now called conservation tillage techniques.

Designed to slow the destruction of topsoil, these practices radically altered

methods of soil preparation, crop planting, and general soil management.

PHILIP J. NELSON graduated from the Agricultural History program at lowa State University last summer with a dissertation entided "The Elusive Balance: The Small Community in Mass Society, 1940-1960." He is, at present, teaching in Waterloo, lowa.

1. Sandra S. Batie compares and contrasts contemporary national soil conservation policies with those at the movement's beginnings in the 1930s in "Soil Conservation in the 1980s: A Histor? ical Perspective," Agricultural History 59 (April 1985): 107-23.

Agricultural History / Volume 71 / Number 1 / Winter 1997 ?Agricultural History Society

71

72 / Agricultural History

In so doing, these procedures changed the way people perceived the soil,

challenged conventional plow-based farming practices dating back into an-

tiquity, and elicited an engineering mentality which accommodated both

the ideal of soil conservation and the incipient system of production agri?

culture after World War II. Most soil scientists came to believe that the de-

velopmental logic of conservation tillage techniques required a blend of

utilitarian soil conservationism with the most powerful chemical weapons

in the arsenal of industrial agriculture.

Conventional tillage techniques generally utilized some version of the

time-honored plow as the primary tillage implement. Whether the plow

merely scratched the surface or completely buried sod or crop residues, it

left the soil surface less protected from wind and water. Deeper primary

tillage and more secondary tillage using discs and harrows tended to boost

yields somewhat, but also increased soil erosion. The advent of tractors and

heavier tillage equipment allowed farmers to create powdery-smooth, clod-

free seedbeds. This soil condition, however, was even more prone to ero?

sion than the relatively cloddy fields produced by horse-powered tillage.2

Tillage practices were not the only causes of soil erosion. Extensive de-

forestation, over-grazing, land speculation, and farm abandonment due to

degradation of soil fertility and structure all contributed to the destruction

of soil integrity. But soil erosion due to tillage practices was a problem

which appeared to be remediable by fairly direct actions.3

A few individual farmers and agricultural officials worked to reverse this

trend in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries mainly through a

program of terracing, especially in the Southeast. Scientists gradually in?

creased their understanding of soil dynamics through research such as Paul

2. G. M. Shear, "The Development of the No-Till Concept in the United States" Outlook on

Agriculture 5 (December 1968): 247; Willard W. Cochrane, The Development of American Agricul? ture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1979), 189-208; W. E. Larson, "Tillage During the Past 25 Years," Crops and Soils 25 (December 1972): 5.

3. Stanley W. Trimble, "Perspectives on the History of Soil Erosion Control in the Eastern United States," Agricultural History 59 (April 1985): 162-63; Hildegard Binder Johnson, "Towards a National Landscape," in The Making of the American Landscape, ed. Michael P. Conzen (London: Harper Collins Academic, 1990), 128,140. Land speculation is a major issue in John Opie, The Law ofthe Land: Two Hundred Years of American Farmland Policy (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987).

Soil Erosion / 73

B. Sears' investigations into desertification, M. E Miller's (Missouri Experi?

ment Station) precision measurements of erosion rates for different crop

conditions, and Hugh H. Bennett's (U.S. Soil Survey) regional erosion

studies. Largely through Bennett's leadership and the help of government

social scientists like M. L. Wilson and Rexford Tugwell, the Soil Conserva?

tion Service (SCS) was founded in 1935. Yet, despite heightened awareness

of soil erosion, the creation of the SCS, and the formation of private na?

tional associations like the Friends of the Land and the Soil Conservation

Society of America, calls for conservation action seemed to do little to chal?

lenge conventional tillage practices.4

Efforts to speed adoption of soil conservation efforts among farmers

during World War II years were blunted mainly by higher commodity

prices and government appeals for all-out production, despite innovative

programs like the Standard State Soil Conservation Districts model law

passed in 1937. Its purpose was to tailor specific conservation measures to

the problems of individual watersheds. Although some farmers joined con?

servation districts and adopted soil conservation plans during the war,

many others did not implement these controis and so experienced higher

rates of erosion when they switched from small grains and forage crops to

more acres of row crops. Yet, some farmers changed to contour farming for

the first time, perhaps as a response to patriotic articles that appeared in

farm journals equating soil conservation with the war effort.5

Although the SCS continued to promote traditional conservation tech?

niques like contouring and terracing, it showed significant interest in the

more advanced research that was well under way by the late 1930s. This re-

4. R. B. Held and Marion Clawson, Soil Conservation in Perspective (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1965), 29-39; Trimble, "Perspectives," 163-64; M. L. Nichols and D. D. Smith, "Progress in

Erosion Control Over the Past 50 Years," Agricultural Engineering 38 (June 1957): 422,424; Samuel P. Hays, Beauty, Health and Permanence: Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955-1985

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 18; Batie, "Soil Conservation," 108-9; USDA, Soil

and Men?The Yearbook of Agriculture, 1938 (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 1938).

5. Batie, "Soil Conservation," 109; "So We'll Have Soil For the Boys" Wallaces* Farmer 70

(7 April 1945): 266-67. Federal Soil Conservation Service projects provide excellent background information on the state of conservation at particular points in time and the intent ofthe agency in

specific locales. See for example, D. E. Perfect and D. A. Sheetz, "Physical Land Conditions on the

Farmersburg-McGregor Project, Clayton County, lowa," Physical Land Survey 28 (1942), 25 pp.


search suggested that alternative tillage techniques could be made to serve

the conservation ethic. Developed largely by F. L. Duley and J. C. Russell, in

cooperation with the Nebraska Experiment Station, the stubble mulch or

crop-residue mulch practice was the direct descendent of research

prompted by the massive and destructive wind erosion in the Dust Bowl,

centered primarily in the Great Plains. Stubble mulching proved to be one

ofthe most effective means of erosion control ever devised. It utilized sub-

surface tillage implements (many of which were developed in cooperation

with local implement manufacturers and area inventors), which left crop

residues on the soil surface, thus shielding soil particles from wind and wa?

ter erosion. In addition, when used in conjunction with a fallow program,

the stubble mulch method demonstrated that the loosened soil readily ac?

cepted moisture, yet the stubble shaded the soil and reduced evaporation.6

Much of this institutional conservation tillage research was preceded by

two agricultural philosophers and inventors around the turn of the nine?

teenth century. Hardy Webster Campbell played a large role in the adoption

of dry-farming methods, mainly through his advocacy ofthe "dust mulch"

technique in a soil culture manual published in 1902. He believed that

moisture could be "collected" in the soil by combining the principles of a

packed subsoil and a loose top mulch immediately after harvest and during

the fallow season too. While the system proved successful in guarding soil

moisture from excessive evaporation, it also exposed the soil to tremendous

potential wind erosion. L. C. Van Patten, an early crusader for subsurface

tillage, preached the "gospel" of stubble mulching?leaving the soil un-

turned and crop residues on the surface. In 1907, he patented the rod-

weeder, which made stubble mulching practical for the first time. When the

stubble mulch concept finally came into vogue in the 1930s and 1940s, he

modified the rodweeder to operate at deeper depths. It found its greatest

6. For the SCS's interest in conservation tillage, see Hugh H. Bennett, Soil Conservation (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1939); and USDA, Report ofthe Chief ofthe Soil Conservation Service, 1940

(Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 1940). F. L. Duley and J. C. Russell, "Effect of Stubble Mulch on Soil Erosion and Runoff" Soil Science Society of America Proceedings 7 (1942): 78-81; J. C. Russell, "Some Historical Aspects of Stubble Mulch Tillage," Conservation Tillage: Pro?

ceedings of Conservation Tillage Workshop (Fort Collins: Great Plains Agricultural Council, 1976), 1-12; H. L. Borst and Russell Woodburn, "The Effect of Mulching and Methods of Cultivation on Runoff and Erosion from Muskingum Silt Loam," Agricultural Engineering 23 (January 1942): 19-23.

Soil Erosion / 75

acceptance in the Great Plains wheat-growing areas, where it allowed farm?

ers to destroy weeds on their fallow land without exposing the soil com-

pletely, as was the case under clean tillage conditions.7

In other areas of the country the conservation tillage movement took

different directions. In 1951, soil scientists hailed the practice of planting

row crops on top of twelve-inch-high ridges as a new soil-saving method.

After ten years of research, C. S. Britt declared ridge planting methods suc?

cessful at the USDA's research station in Beltsville, Maryland. Ridged rows

were new to modern Great Lakes region and Corn Belt agriculture, but had

been used before mechanized tillage all the way back to colonial times in

the Southeast. Researchers claimed that an old idea had simply been placed

on a new scientific basis. They gave much of the credit to farm machinery

engineers who aided in the development of machinery for ridging, plant?

ing, and cultivating row cropland. All ofthe scientists involved in the proj?

ect cited the increased prevention of cross-wash erosion as the main advan?

tage to ridge planting. Ridges also facilitated better drainage and aeration

on certain soils, and actually increased yields in wet years.8

The Beltsville station was not, however, the only experimental station

involved in ridge planting research. Experiments began in 1938 at the Mis?

souri station. The results demonstrated lower yields than conventionally

planted row crops, but also lower labor and power requirements. The

experiments were later curtailed due to a lack of effective machinery to

construct the ridges, cultivate, and control weeds. Yet, most important, the

results showed that soil losses could be cut by 33 percent over surface plant?

ing, and water losses cut by 50 percent. But not until the mid-1950s did

Corn Belt researchers return to the concept of ridge farming in a whole-

hearted way. New technologies in the form of practical equipment and her-

bicides allowed scientists more control over the soil/crop matrix and more

consistent production.9

7. Mary Wilma M. Hargreaves, Dry Farming in the Northern Great Plains, 1900-1925 (Cam? bridge: Harvard University Press, 1957), 85-95; "The School Teacher and the Rodweeder," Crops and Soils 3 (August-September 1951): 16-17.

8. C S. Britt, "Ridged Rows, New Soil Saving Method, Successful in Maryland," Crops and Soils 3 (February 1951): 18-19.

9. W. F. Buchele et al., "Ridge Farming for Erosion Control," Soil Conservation 21 (July 1956): 269-73.


Although the ridge planting method usually involved a substantial

amount of tillage to create the ridges (a new type of plow called a two-way

plow was used at first), this technique represented a decided shift away

from the philosophy of a level soil surface practiced in conventional tillage

methodology. Later innovations in tillage technique combined planting

and ridge construction, and sometimes even spraying, into one pass, thus

reducing the amount of time the soil was bare and open to the elements.

The most radical of the alternative approaches to conventional tillage

addressed not only the problem of soil erosion, but a whole range of farm?

ing problems from acid soil to decreasing amounts of organic matter in

topsoil The publication of Edward Faulkner's provocative Plowman's Folly

in 1943 served as a rallying point for all those observers ofthe agricultural

scene who felt that conventional tillage methods were squandering the na?

tion's precious topsoil at unacceptably rapid rates and imperiling the future

viability of American agriculture.10

Faulkner claimed that moldboard plowing was a destructive practice be?

cause it interrupted the capillary action ofthe subsoil/topsoil matrix. In ad?

dition, plowing also buried residues too deeply, so that not only did the

residues thus turned under decay slowly, but moisture needed by the grow?

ing crops during the summer was attracted away toward the buried

residues. Moreover, the top of the soil turned up by the plow dried out

rapidly and hastened capillary evaporation. Faulkner also asserted that an?

nual plowing tended to excessively expose humus?the organic content of

soil?to the elements and thus destroy it through erosion and oxidation.

Therefore, he concluded that the moldboard plow was the least satisfactory

implement for the preparation of land for crop production.11

Faulkner was not, of course, the first person to observe that conven?

tional farming techniques often caused erosion, sour soils, lowering of the

water table, vanishing wildlife, and compact and impervious soils. Pioneer

agricultural engineer Mark Nichols set out to measure the dynamic rela-

10. Edward H. Faulkner, Pbwman's Folly (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1943). See

also Russell Lord, Behold Our Land (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1938); Russell Lord, "To Hold This

Soil," USDA, Farmers* Bulletin, no. 321 (1938); Hugh H. Bennett, "Abolition of the Plow," New Re?

public 109 (4 October 1943): 453-54. 11. Faulkner, Pbwmans Folly, 3-4.

Soil Erosion / 77

tions between soil and tillage equipment, designed a type of terrace bearing

his name, and was instrumental in initiating the stubble mulch approach a

decade before Faulkner's book appeared. Experimental author-farmer

Louis Bromfield promoted an early type of permaculture. Hugh Bennett

had lobbied since the early 1920s for sustainability in agriculture well be?

fore it was fashionable. In 1940, ecologist Aldo Leopold, journalist Russell

Lord, Bennett, Bromfield, and others formed the conservation organiza?

tion Friends of the Land. It insisted that a healthy soil was the basis of a

healthy society.12

Dissatisfied with the efficacy of traditional soil conservation methods,

Faulkner launched a fundamental assault against the technological basis of

conventional tillage practices. Taking his cue from Paul B. SearV book

Deserts on the March, Faulkner stated "except for our sabotage of nature's

design for growth, there is no soil problem." Faulkner based his case on

what he believed was a lack of scientific rationale for plowing. The usual

reasons for plowing, such as burying weed seeds, getting oxygen to plant

roots, conserving water, and loosening compact and tight soils, were based

as much on custom and tradition as on scientific evidence. Faulkner's mas?

ter solution depended simply on using an unmodified disc harrow to work

into the top part of the soil heavy annual growths of a green manure cover

crop. That is, a growing crop of grasses, winter rye, or legumes would be

disced into the soil surface in the spring. Planting then took place in the

decaying green manure mulch, which acted as a sponge to keep water and

nutrients directly in the root zone of the developing crop. Although

Faulkner never mentioned ridge planting, his system did incorporate two im?

portant aspects of conservation tillage?minimum tillage of the soil surface

and the stubble mulch concept, both effective agents of soil conservation.13

Plowmans Folly created a storm of controversy among academic circles,

12. Elizabeth Diane Schafer, "'Saving the Good Earth': Mark Lovel Nichols, Soil Dynamics, and the Pioneering of Agricultural Engineering" (Ph.D. diss., Auburn University, 1993), 2, 340,

347; Louis Bromfield, MalabarFarm (New York: Harper, 1945). The Land Quarterly was published

by Friends of the Land from 1940-1954. See also Louis Bromfield, Out ofthe Earth (New York:

Harper, 1950); and Russell Lord, The Care of the Earth (New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons,

1962). 13. Faulkner, Plowman's Folly, 13; Paul B. Sears, Deserts on the March (Norman: University of

Oklahoma Press, 1935).


as well as within the popular farm press. Hugh Bennett had called for the

abolition ofthe plow in an article for the New Republic; Harpers magazine

countered with an article entitled "Plowman's Folly Refuted," while the

Farm Journal (as quoted in the Fertilizer Review) told its readers to "go

ahead and plow." Most tillage scientists, however, adopted little more than

the concept of reduced tillage from Faulkner, and largely ignored other as?

pects of his system because they appeared impractical or clashed with the

promise of the emerging herbicidal technologies. Most researchers chose

the chemical route because it seemed to offer a low cost, convenient way

around the weed problem, which was the perennial stumbling block in any

regime of reduced tillage, and thus contributed to a growing bifurcation

between "mainstream" production agriculturalists who utilized "indus?

trial" techniques and alternative farming advocates who were concerned

with issues of sustainability, agroecology, and organic farming.14

Extremely negative responses to Faulkner's book typically marshalled se?

lected scholarly research results in an attempt to disprove his thesis. Repre-

sentative of this group was an article from the Fertilizer Review, which used

published academic studies from agricultural experiment stations to show

decreased yields without plowing. The article not only denounced minimum

tillage, but advocated plowing to a depth of ten inches, accompanied by a

deep application of fertilizer. That this would put the fertilizer below much

ofthe root zone of most field crops did not seem to occur to the author.15

Yet, the plowing controversy did cause agriculturalists to look for other

tillage implements. In the late 1940s, some farm magazines and soil experts

suggested the one-way disc plow, which consisted of a row of heavy disc

blades angled and set on a diagonal to the direction of pull. Long used in

the West because it left approximately 40 percent of the stubble to fight

wind erosion, it quickly caught on in the South. The disc plow's advocates

noted that it did not bury all residues like the moldboard plow, nor did it

leave a hard-packed plowsole.16

14. Bennett, "Abolition of the Plow," 453; Emily Truog, "Plowman's Folly Refuted," Harper's 189 (July 1944): 173-77; Charles J. Brand, "Farmers are Plowing Again," Fertilizer Review 19 (Janu? ary 1944): 3.

15. Charles J. Brand, "Farmers are Plowing Again," 3. 16. "Disc Plows," Farm Quarterly 2 (Autumn 1947): 24-27; H. J. Harper, "Methods for Preparing

a Seedbed for Winter Wheat," Journal ofthe American Society ofAgronomy 24 (April 1932): 322-28.

Soil Erosion / 79

How much more effect Plowman's Folly and other writings on alterna?

tive tillage equipment had on agricultural thinking is uncertain, but after

the war, some articles on soil erosion demonstrated a greater ecological un?

derstanding than ever before. Wartime agricultural practices definitely pro?

moted a deeper realization about the connection between soil erosion and

fertility. In an article in Successful Farming, Maurice Heath, an SCS scien-

tist, stated that "12 million acres of Var-weary' land must go back to sod

crops to save soil and to replenish fertility." In 1946, another advocate of

soil conservation, writer Jim Roe, used a more metaphorical approach by

saying that "Erosion is a poison which can easily kill your farm. But there

are medicines to fight that poison. Grasses, trees, terraces, contour plant-

ings, ponds?these will immunize the land? "

Asserting that "soil struc?

ture is the key to yield," an Ohio experiment station researcher, Robert Yo-

der, observed that general soil health had deteriorated as a result ofthe very

wasteful farming required during the war, and the time had come to shift to

conservation farming. In addition, Yoder demonstrated knowledge of the

interrelationship of the many factors which influence soil health. He called

for a total system of soil management, concerned not just with erosion, but

with humus, fertility, and tilth as well. Finally, he advocated a minimum of

a four-year crop rotation with at least two years of alfalfa-brome grass

plantings. Of course, other officials who were concerned with production

control after World War II advocated rotating "war-weary" lands mainly to

increase the role of hay and grass crops and thus reduce the amount of sub-

sidized commodities like corn and cotton.17

By the mid- 1950s, soil management became a key concept in the emerg-

ing doctrine of conservation tillage. Researchers still gave their primary at?

tention to the prevention of soil erosion, but the ideology of soil conserva?

tion had been extended to include overall soil health and permanency.

They saw minimum tillage systems as another asset in their anti-soil ero?

sion campaign. Conservation tillage usually took one of three recognizable

but overlapping forms. First, soil scientists extended the stubble mulch

17. Maurice E. Heath, "Soil Depends on Grasses," Successful Farming 44 (November 1946): 26; Jim Roe, "Soil Must Stay at Home," Successful Farming 44 (November 1946): 66; Robert E. Yoder, "Soil Structure is Key to Yield," Successful Farming 44 (November 1946): 23; Murray R. Benedict, Farm Policies ofthe United States, 1790-1950 (New York: Octagon, 1966), 465-90.


methodology to include a general concern for keeping all crop residues on

or partially beneath the soil surface during both the growing and dormant

seasons. Second, a "rediscovery" ofthe ridge planting technique spurred in?

vestigation into ways to keep crop yields up while adding the benefits of

residue mulching to ridge planting. Third, soil management proponents

stressed general reductions in tillage in order to decrease soil erosion. This

manifested itself in many different systems of reduced tillage with or with?

out the plow. The logical descendent of minimal tillage arose at this time in

the form of the no-tillage crop husbandry system as envisioned by G. M.

Browning in 1948: "Visualize a single machine to prepare the seedbeds and

plant the crop in a single operation. The crop residue would be on the

surface to protect the soil from erosion_Sprays would control the

weeds? This would reduce the cost of producing a crop and at the same

time avoid the destructive effect of tillage practices on soil structure." Given

that soil erosion was largely perceived by agricultural scientists as an engi?

neering problem, it is not surprising that potential solutions were generally

portrayed in technological terms.18

Experiments on the no-till method began in Connecticut in 1945 and in

New Jersey in 1949. This research emerged out ofthe need to renovate hilly

worn-out pastures without first exposing them to erosion-prone tillage

practices. Traditional renovation relied on the production of a conven?

tional seedbed free of sod and residues. The no-till investigators quickly

learned to use the product of chemical agricultural research?herbicides.

Some observers called it a technological revolution: "The reemergence of a

need for a change in tillage practices thus coincided with the development

of a tool that could eliminate tillage entirely, and an agricultural revolution

was under way." Application of herbicides such as 2,4-D and Paraquat

killed the existing sod and allowed the drilling of forage crop seeds. Studies

by M. A. Sprague at Rutgers showed that the dying sod maintained excel-

lent protection against wind and water erosion, and retarded reversion to

18. O. W. Beale, G. B. Nutt, and T. C. Peele, "The Effects of Mulch Tillage on Runoff, Erosion, Soil Properties, and Crop Yields," Soil Science Society of America Proceedings 19 (April 1955): 244-47; G. M. Browning, "Research Needs of Tillage in Soil and Water Conservation," Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 3 (April 1948): 104.

Soil Erosion / 81

undesirable grasses. As an added bonus, renovation without tillage pro?

duced yields equal to or better than conventional methods.19

By 1952, early efforts by K. C. Barrons, J. H. Davidson, and C. D.

Fitzgerald, Dow Company chemists, made the no-till production of crops

other than pasture grasses possible on a routine basis. Further development

in herbicide technology sparked interest by J. E. Moody, G. M. Shear, and

J. N. Jones Jr. of the Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station in applying

the no-till method to corn and other major crops. Paraquat continued to be

used heavily, along with atrazine, which killed the sod without harming the

corn. Production and sales of one particular herbicide, 2,4-D, increased

dramatically, rising from 14 million pounds in 1950 to 53 million pounds

in 1964. Much of this growth was due to a shift from postemergence appli?

cation to preemergence by the early 1960s. The rapidity of this change and

herbicidal development in general was demonstrated by 2,4-D's patenting

in 1945, its first application as a preemergence herbicide in 1946 by Paul

Marth and John Mitchell at Beltsville, and its commercial marketing in

thirty different forms by 1947. Driven in part by their ideal of zero tillage,

conservation tillage researchers eagerly appropriated herbicides because

they could do what no machine could accomplish?kill vegetation but

leave a plantable, mulched soil surface. Even though herbicides killed weeds

by chemical means, they acted with machinelike efficiency, were readily ap?

plied by machines, and in general fit easily into a machine-dominated agri?

cultural system. Although a few no-till studies were conducted without

herbicides in the late 1950s, the benefits of herbicides seemed obvious

while the disadvantages were not apparent or overlooked.20

No-till studies and mulch tillage investigations confirmed other benefits

of conservation tillage besides the prevention of soil erosion. In 1967, T. S.

Speight, an R. J. Reynolds agronomist, piqued farmers interest by demon-

19. Philip Gersmehl, "No-Till Farming: The Regional Applicability of a Revolutionary Agri? cultural Technology" Geographical Review 68 (January 1978): 66; Shear, "Development of No-Till," 247.

20. Shear, "Development of No-Till," 248; H. M. Young, No-Tillage Farming (Brookfield, Wise.: No-Till Farmer, 1982), 19-20; Gale E. Peterson, "The Discovery and Development of 2,4-D,"

Agricultural History 41 (July 1967): 252-53; A. E. Peterson, "Renewing Permanent Pastures with Minimum Soil Tillage" Journal ofSoil and Water Conservation 15 (March 1960): 76-78.


strating a successful double-crop of no-till soybeans after small grains in

North Carolina. Other studies showed that both the techniques of

mulching with crop residues and no-tillage on sod promoted positive soil

aggregation. In addition, observers found that the total amount of water

absorbed by soil increased in the presence of mulches. Also, under some

conditions researchers reported higher crop yields utilizing mulch tillage

techniques. Scientists almost unanimously attributed higher crop yields

after mulch tillage to increased soil aggregation, water infiltration, and aer-

ation, thus promoting greater plant growth.21

The scientific foundations for the conservation tillage movement devel?

oped quickly, partly based on new fundamental research in soil erosion

mechanics. In late 1948, soil scientist Walter Ellison published an article

concerned with the identification of a new type of soil erosion?raindrop

induced "splash erosion." The power of falling raindrops does the initial

loosening of most soil particles susceptible to erosion. Then the action of

scour erosion or runoff transports them into larger streams. Surprisingly,

people had not realized this before. They quickly discovered that cover

crops and mulches protected soil from splash erosion. Therefore, soil pro?

tection had to start with providing a buffer against splash erosion. With this

kind of thinking, many soil scientists had moved one hundred and eighty

degrees away from the conventional position that plowing and a thorough

working of the soil down to a fine powdery condition devoid of any visible

residues was absolutely essential to a good crop.22

Despite the rapidly advancing state of knowledge about the ecology of

soil conservation within professional and scientific circles, the bulk of this

unconventional information only gradually filtered out to the lay commu?

nity. Hence, many articles in farm journals still talked about soil conserva?

tion without mentioning conservation tillage techniques?mulch tillage,

no-till, or even nonplow-based reduced tillage. This was especially true for

the Corn Belt in the early 1950s, where farmers were reluctant to try re-

21. J. H. Stallings, "Keep Crop Residues on Surface of Ground," Better Crops 34 (October 1950): 9-16; Ronald E. Phillips and Shirley H. Phillips, eds., No-Tillage Agriculture: Principles and Practices (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1984), 2; Shear, "Development of No-Till," 247.

22. Grover F. Brown and Walter D. Ellison, "A New Approach to Erosion Control," Crops and Soibl (October 1948): 12-13.

Soil Erosion / 83

duced tillage. Lack of suitable equipment, weed control problems, inconsis-

tent yield comparisons with conventional methods, and a low prioity given

to soil erosion created little motivation for the new technique. Many farm?

ers still agonized over not getting most of their plowing done in the fall be?

cause they were not usually so rushed with their work then as they were in

the spring. Fall plowing was one of the chief culprits behind soil erosion

from both wind and water. Yet, farmers still believed they would sometimes

need to delay planting if they waited until spring to plow. Even in an article

devoted to some ofthe easiest ways to save soil, no real mention was made

of conservation tillage. Many writers still directed much concern toward

the most efficient use ofthe plow, along with the usual talk about contour-

stripcropping, buffer strips, manuring pastures, and so forth.23

Nevertheless, research continued along experimental lines designed to

attain minimal soil erosion and maximum crop yields. Even a diminution

of interest in soil conservation programs during the Eisenhower adminis?

tration was not enough to stop all research projects. One such research pro?

gram emerged during the mid-1950s, when the ridge planting system was

resurrected in the Corn Belt by Wesley F. Buchele at lowa State University.

In 1956, after four years of field trials, Buchele published his results and

others immediately picked up on them, seeking to adapt them to different

soil and terrain conditions. The purpose of ridge planting practices was to

keep up yields and bring down rates of soil erosion, through the use of nar?

row soil ridges or miniterraces along field contours. The latter was a very

important goal because some areas ofthe Corn Belt suffered tremendously

high rates of erosion and sedimentation. Buchele may have wanted to make

ridge planting appear less radical to conventionally minded farmers be?

cause he frequently compared it to an older technique known as listing.

Farmers in the drier, western areas of the Corn Belt commonly used this

practice. Listing and ridge planting were mirror images of each other. List?

ing planted the seeds at the bottom of the trench to take fiill advantage of

available moisture, while ridge planting put the seed on top ofthe ridges. In

23. George Johnson, "Do You Believe in Fall Plowing?" Successful Farming 49 (November 1951): 44-45; George Johnson, "The 12 Easiest Ways to Save Soil," Successful Farming 51 (Novem? ber 1953): 36-37.


addition, the older methods of soil conservation were not forgotten be?

cause Buchele put a great deal of stress on contour placement of the

ridges.24

The mid-1950s also saw a great diversity in methods of tillage and plant?

ing which claimed to reduce time, labor, machine costs, and trips over the

fields. Innovations in stubble mulch technology were not replicated in the

Corn Belt, as problems adapting equipment to row crop conditions forced

research in different directions. The plow and plant method came into a

brief vogue then, as well as a variation called the "wheel-track" technique,

developed by Ray L. Cook at Michigan State University in 1946. Supported

by nine years of tests at the Michigan Experiment Station, the plow-plant

method's main claim to fame was that it produced so-called "perfect" mois?

ture conditions in the seedbed. Farmers could attain these proper circum?

stances by equipping the plow with a "clod-buster" attachment, and then

without any intervening secondary tillage, planting before the soil dried out

too much. Despite its appellation of "minimum tillage," it did not give up

the use of the moldboard plow, and one article even went so far as to call it

"the best implement to loosen and crumble soil."25

By the late 1950s, the plow-plant method was just one of many innova-

tive new tillage systems designed to slow down soil erosion. The 1958

Farmers' Bulletin, no. 2118, listed six soil conserving methods for corn in?

cluding: mulch tillage, double-cut plowing, manure mulching, ridge-row

tillage, listing, and corn-sod intercropping. Some of these systems were

made possible, in part, due to advances in technology. Hybrid seeds, fertil?

izers, herbicides and pesticides, and new and modified machinery provided

a great deal of flexibility in matching tillage and planting methods to par?

ticular agricultural conditions. Yet these same technological advances drove

up the cost of farming. In addition, the Farmers* Bulletin criticized the

24. Bernard DeVoto, "Conservation: Down and on the Way Out," Harpers 209 (August 1952): 66-74; Wesley F. Buchele, "Ridge Planting," Successful Farming54 (May 1956): 23-24; W. F. Buchele et al, "Ridge Farming for Erosion Control," Soil Conservation 21 (July 1956): 269-73; Ted L. Will- rich, "Plant Corn on 12-inch Ridges," Hoard's Dairyman 101 (25 April 1956): 430-31.

25. J. C. Van Es and Peter Notier, "No-Till Farming in the United States: Research and Policy Environment in the Development and Utilization of an Innovation" Society and Natural Resources 1 (January-February 1988): 96; R. L. Cook, "Plow and Plant: It Works in Michigan

" Hoard's Dairy? man 101 (10 May 1956): 465.

Soil Erosion / 85

practice of excessive tillage, citing it as a causative factor in soil erosion, soil

compaction, and undue moisture loss.26

Researchers continued to maintain their close adherence to a standard of

maximum soil retention with respect to tillage systems. By the 1960s, soil

scientists had eliminated all but three main practices, each of which pre?

dominated in a particular region of the country: stubble mulch (Great

Plains), no-tillage (East), and reduced or ridge tillage (Corn Belt). Of these,

various kinds of minimum and reduced tillage emerged as the most popu?

lar general method. Both the academic journals and farm magazines con?

tained articles touting the effectiveness, wide acceptance, and cost savings

of minimum tillage. As previously noted, minimum tillage was originally a

plow-based system that reduced tillage following plowing. Following the

introduction of a newly developed implement, many farmers moved al?

most completely away from the moldboard plow. The chisel plow, in con?

trast, did not invert the soil like the traditional moldboard plow. It chiseled

or ripped through the ground, opening up the soil to absorption of mois?

ture but not burying all the crop residues. This promoted soil conservation

while at the same time putting the ground in a condition more suitable for

planting. For many farmers, chisel plowing completely replaced moldboard

plowing in the fall. Its acceptance into the Corn Belt grew in the late 1960s,

as chisel designs changed to allow better trash clearance to avoid plugging

and as tractors capable of pulling it appeared.27

Other new or redesigned equipment entered the market in the 1960s

and 1970s and was quickly adopted by conservation tillage enthusiasts. The

field cultivator had been used in the Midwest for pasture renovation in the

1940s and in wheat-growing areas for summer fallow maintenance. De-

signers made it a heavier, stronger machine, better able to prevent residue

buildup. It became popular in seedbed preparation for row crops in the

26. USDA, "Soil Conserving Tillage for Corn," Farmers' Bulletin, no. 2118 (1958): 1-16. 27. For example, L. D. Meyer and J. V. Mannering, "Minimum Tillage for Corn," Agricultural

Engineering 42 (February 1961): 72-75; P. O. Ackerson, "Minimum Tillage Deemed Effective in

Midwest," Crops and Soils 13 (December 1960): 22-23; George W. Wormley, "Short of Cash? Try Minimum Tillage," Farm Journal 85 (April 1961): 39; Arthur Peterson, "Minimum Tillage Goes

Nationwide," Farm Quarterly 19 (Spring 1964): 84-85; Don Macmillan and Roy Harrington, John Deere Tractors and Equipment, vol. 2 (St. Joseph, Mich.: American Society of Agricultural Engi? neers, 1991), 224.


Corn Belt. In addition, it was sometimes fitted with a harrow attachment,

making it a seedbed finishing tool in light trash conditions. A more rugged

tillage combination appeared in the 1970s as the mulch-tiller. It was the

product of the combination of a disc and a chisel plow, and it was often

used in primary tillage, or the initial field operation to incorporate the pre?

vious year's crop residues. The mulch-finisher was a lighter combination of

a disc, field cultivator, and harrow, and was often used in one-pass seedbed

preparation.28

While many pieces of equipment appeared that were suitable for mulch

tillage, advocates of no-till and ridge planting methods only gradually de?

veloped improved equipment. The feasibility of their systems depended on

more accurate, heavier planters able to deal with high trash field condi?

tions. More and more people realized that only the row zone (the narrow

band of soil where the seed was planted) needed to be tilled or just opened

as a slit in the ground, and the interrow area needed no or only rough

tillage. Different regions of the country required particular no-till ap-

proaches, such as the problem of opening unplowed, hard knoll topsoil

with lightweight grain drills faced by the wheat farmers of the Palouse re?

gion of Washington. Mort Swanson, a lifelong Palouse farmer, responded

in 1974 by building a 25-ton grain drill he nicknamed "Old Yellow." The

massive weight and strength ofthe drill successfully matched the stubborn

soil conditions and later lead him to form a company which manufactured

the specialized drills.29

No-till practitioners depended absolutely on another technological in?

novation, chemical herbicides for weed control; their greater availability,

increasing potency, and multiplicity in terms of soil and crop applications

did much to spur the development and effectiveness of no-till methods in

the 1960s and 1970s. Researchers at last had consistent results to show

farmers. Ironically, the very tool which made the no-till technique work so

well as a soil-saving method contaminated groundwater; herbicides ulti-

28. Macmillan and Harrington, John Deere Tractors and Equipment, 226,232-35. 29. William P. Martin, "For the Farm: Soil and Water Conservation Research "

Journal ofSoil and Water Conservation 20 (January-February 1965): 12-16; Charles E. Little, Green Fields Forever: The Conservation Revolution in America (Washington, D.C: Island Press, 1987), 50-55.

Soil Erosion / 87

mately appeared in both rural and urban drinking water supplies. Al?

though the scientific community did not project a monolithic outlook

toward the adoption of new technologies like herbicides, there was a

notable lack of controversy concerning the use of those chemicals in the

conservation tillage movement. By the mid- 1960s, however, agricultural

scientists began to respond to criticisms of technology as more of a creator

of social problems than a purveyor of social solutions: "Problems about

which the public has recently demanded information that researchers must

have time to acquire are the absorption and retention of radioactive fallout

by crops and soils, and the possibly harmful effects of residues from pestici-

dal or herbicidal sprays." Nevertheless, agricultural chemical use still gener?

ally meant progress, and national no-till corn production subsequently in?

creased from only a few hundred acres in the mid-1960s to nearly 5 million

acres in 1977.30

As conservation tillage systems found use in actual farmland applica?

tion, researchers were not sure which method to advise farmers to choose.

Most agreed that a reduction in tillage was advantageous. But in the 1960s

the effect of surface trash was not fully understood. There were questions

about possible trash accumulation on the soil surface, interference with fer?

tilizer, herbicide, and pesticide applications, and the possible promotion of

soil insects and plant diseases. Critics of conservation tillage pointed out

that crop residues tended to lower the soil temperature in spring. This con?

dition could cause slow seed germination, poor root growth, slow decay of

organic matter, and improper activation of pesticides. Cold and wet condi?

tions associated with conservation tillage slowed adoption in the northern

parts ofthe country, such as the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan,

and in New England, where soils naturally stayed cold farther into the

growing season. One area ofthe country where scientists were able to make

a clear choice in conservation tillage methods was in the semiarid Great

Plains. The use of stubble mulch tillage increased to over 50 percent of all

cropland. The application of technology in the form of better machinery

30. For the idea of technology as a social solution and social question after World War II, see Alan I Marcus and Howard P. Segal, Technology in America: A Brief History (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989); Martin, "For the Farm," 15; Gersmehl, "No-Till Farming" 68.


and more and better fertilizers and herbicides accounted for most of its

greater acceptance.31

By 1976, some form of conservation tillage was applied to around 39

million acres, out of a cropland total of approximately 450 million acres.

However, conservationists admitted it was no panacea for soil erosion.

Some poorly drained soils simply could not use any system besides conven?

tional tillage. In addition, conservation tillage did not stop all erosion; soil

conservation experts counseled the retention of the older, but still very ef-

fective, conservation systems such as terraces and contour-stripcropping.

Furthermore, academic observers noted that the "choice of a system must

take into account available equipment, soil and climatic conditions, size

and type of farming operation, and a farmer's managerial ability and per?

sonal preferences."32

Under conventional clean-tillage conditions, farmers usually believed

they could control seed placement quite accurately. Conservation tillage in

the form of simple reduced tillage posed new problems for seed placement

in terms of residue interference with the planter, depth control, and some?

times poor contact between the seed and moist soil. Advanced planter de?

signs helped ameliorate this problem somewhat. As early as 1966, planters

appeared that were capable of precision seed placement in tough residue

conditions, even though the first ones were not designed for that purpose.

In addition, more complex conservation tillage variants provided unique

advantages of their own. Both farmers and researchers realized that the

combination of no-till or strip tillage practices with ridge planting could

help solve the cold temperature and seed placement problems of no-tillage

alone. By 1965, corn industry investigators published findings that showed

31. W. E. Larson, "Tillage: Enough Is Enough" Crops and Soils 19 (April-May 1967): 12-13; Samuel D. Parsons, "No-Plow, Once Over Planting," Crops and Soib 19 (January 1967): 9-13; Larson, "Tillage During the Past 25 Years," 6.

32. Department of Commerce, 1982 Census of Agriculture (Washington, D.C: Government

Printing Office, 1982); cropland totaled 440 million acres in 1974 and 454 million acres in 1978; R. M. Davis, "Soil Conservation on Agricultural Land: The Challenge Ahead" Conservation Tillage: Problems and Potentials (Ankeny, la.: Soil Conservation Society of America, 1977), 6; Donald R. Griffith, Jerry V. Mannering, and William C Moldenhauer, "Conservation Tillage in the Eastern Corn Belt," Conservation Tillage: Problems and Potentials (Ankeny, la.: Soil Conservation Society of America, 1977), 21.

Soil Erosion / 89

that ridges warm up and dry out faster than the residue-covered interrow

zone. In addition, most of the soil conservation benefits of the no-till

method would be preserved in the merged system. By the latter part of the

decade, the tone of articles by SCS scientists was one of optimism; success?

ful crops could be predicted on the basis of specific knowledge about fertil?

izer, tillage, and herbicide requirements. Ten years later, farmers could

choose from a full line of off-the-shelf conservation tillage equipment for

most crops and cropping conditions. The Buffalo ridge-tillage planter, for

example, emerged as a favorite among a small, but growing group of low

input sustainable agriculturalists because it helped produce acceptable row

crop yields without the use of herbicides. Based on these strengths, the

decade ofthe 1980s witnessed the greatest expansion in use and technolog?

ical progress in no-till ridge planting to date.33

By 1987, farmers cultivated nearly 100 million acres by means of some

conservation tillage system. In addition to the early incentives to change

tillage practices such as reducing production costs and saving soil and fer?

tility, many farmers adopted these practices so that they are not locked out

of federal support programs for failure to comply with soil loss standards

by 1995, as delineated in the Food Security Act of 1985. Legislation man-

dated compliance with certain conservation measures, in return for contin?

ued eligibility in federal farm programs. Farmers are finding conservation

tillage techniques expeditious in reducing soil erosion to near prescribed

levels, often without having to invest in other costlier erosion control mea?

sures, like terraces.34

Whatever the motivation for switching to conservation tillage practices,

the existence of this significant change is clear testimony to the partial suc?

cess of the soil conservation movement in the United States. Mainstream

33. W. G. Lovely, "Ridge Planting of Corn " Proceedings ofthe Tenth Annual Hybrid Corn Indus?

try Research Conference (Chicago: Hybrid Corn Industry Research Conference, 1965); Van Es and Notier, "No-Till Farming in the United States" 100; W. W. Stevens, C C. Abernathy, and J. E. Pollock, "Progress in Minimum Tillage," Soil Conservation 33 (June 1968): 246-47; Ernest E. Behm, More Profit With Less Tillage (Des Moines: Wallace-Homestead, 1982); R. E. Phillips et al., "No-

Tillage," Science 208 (June 1980): 1108-13. 34. National Research Council, Alternative Agriculture (Washington, D.C: National Academy

Press, 1989), 156; E. Jane Luzar, "Natural Resource Management in Agriculture: An Institutional

Analysis ofthe 1985 Farm Bill" Journal ofEconomic Issues 22 (June 1988): 563-70.


agricultural thought recognizes that conservation tillage sytems are here to

stay. Soil conservation researchers continue to play a central role in the de?

velopment of these systems through the fine tuning of measurement stan?

dards, predicting the efficacy of various conservation tillage techniques,

and calculating the amount of residues necessary for bringing soil erosion

losses into acceptable ranges. In the last half century, soil conservation,

which started as an emergency response to the soil erosion crisis, evolved

into a total soil management system combining large, high-powered

machinery, potent chemicals, heavy fertilizer inputs, and a new attitude

toward tillage. Largely due to the efforts of both public and private soil con?

servation researchers, conservation tillage techniques have created the

potential for the near-elimination of sedimentation, the major source of

pollution arising from agricultural activities. But it is precisely the heavy

dependence on agricultural chemicals that makes the current system possi?

ble and poses the biggest challenge to conservation tillage scientists and

practitioners now and in the future.35

35. M. J. Lindstrom et al., "Tillage and Crop Residue Effects on Soil Erosion in the Corn Belt," Journal ofSoil and Water Conservation 34 (March-April 1979): 80-82; D. B. Taylor and D. L. Young, "Conservation Tillage Methods and Income " Journal ofSoil and Water Conservation 40 (Novem- ber-December 1985): 507-11.

to hold the land: soil erosion, agricultural scientists, and the development...

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