ater 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.

[Illustration: _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.

[Illustration: _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.]

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