Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations - Kootenay Local Agricultural Society

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Our country is hilly and we have been in the habit of ploughing in
straight rows whether up and down hill, in oblique lines, or however
they lead; and our soil was all rapidly running into the rivers. We now
plough horizontally, following the curvatures of the hills and hollows,
on the dead level, however crooked the lines may be. Every furrow then
acts as a reservoir to receive and retain the waters, all of which go to the
benefit of the growing plant, instead of running off into the streams. In
a farm horizontally and deeply ploughed, scarcely an ounce of soil is
carried off from it. 15
But the new approach had to be employed with care. Even if pitched
slightly down slope, furrows would still collect runoff and guide incipient
streams into gullies. Though contour plowing caught on, many considered
the effort needed to do it, let alone do it right, too much bother. In the
1830s Randolph’s son described how the “new” practices of deep plowing,
fertilizing with gypsum, and rotating corn with clover or grass would soon
eclipse his father’s contribution in the fight to reclaim worn out lands.
Early in the nineteenth century, Americans began to recognize the need
to safeguard and restore soil fertility. Some farmers began plowing deeper
and adding animal and vegetable manures to their fields. In particular,
agriculturalist John Taylor argued that soil conservation and improvement
were necessary to sustain southern agriculture. “Apparent to the most
superficial observer, is, that our land has diminished in fertility. ...I have
known many farms for above forty years, and ...all of them have been
greatly impoverished.” Forecasting the future of the South, Taylor predicted
“our agricultural progress, to be a progress of emigration,” 16 unless
soil improvement became the region’s agricultural philosophy. By the
1820s, the need for aggressive efforts to improve the soil was widely recognized
throughout the South.
Taylor’s French contemporary Félix de Beaujour characterized American
farmers as nomads continually on the move. He marveled at their general
reluctance to use manure to restore soil fertility. “The Americans appear to
be ignorant that with water manure is every where made; and that with
manure and water, there is not an inch of ground that cannot be made fertile.
The land for this reason is there soon exhausted, and ...the farmers
of the United States resemble a people of shepherds, from their great inclination
to wander from one place to the other.” 17 Such descriptions abound
in early nineteenth-century accounts of the South.
Rural newspapers across the country carried the remarks of retired president
James Madison on the front page when he addressed Virginia’s Albe-
w estward hoe