Nebraska Leads States West of Mississippi In Voting All its Land Into SCS Districts By E. G. JONES State Conservationist J. S. Soil Conservation Service Soil and water conservation have come a long way in Ne braska m the last decade. Ten years ago, only 1*2 per cent of the state's farm and ranch land had been voted by landowners into soil conserva tion districts. Now Nebraska stands as the first state west of the Mississippi and ninth in the nation to have voted all of its land in suph districts. Only one-third of 1 percent of the land was under complete conservation plans a decade a go, but now nearly one-fifth of the land has been brought un der such conservation plans— worked out with the help of the Soil Conservation Service tech nicians, and founded on the physical characteristics and ca pabilities of the land and diag nosis of the conservation prob lems. During this period, too, re search into soil and water con servation by the Nebraska ex periment station and SCS, working cooperatively, has re sulted in great improvements in conservation work. Among these are introduction and es tablishment of new grasses, but probably most notable in the development of a system of stubble-mulch farming. This has spread until it covers at least a million acres of the state’s cropland. Assets of soil conservation districts have risen during the tfl years from only $24,821 in 1940 to more than $400,000 at present. This is remarkable, since the districts cannot by law levy taxes, or make assess- j ments. The assets are entirely earnings from the rental of spe cial equipment, development of grass seed sources, tree plant- j ing operations, and so on. Today there are 435 soil con servation district supervisors in Nebraska, compared with only •0 in 1940. There are 5 super visors on each district board, all farmers in their districts. One is appointed by the state soil conservation committee, and the others are elected by farm ers in the districts. Too much credit cannot be given to the district supervis ors lor their leadership in the stale's conservation progress. Serving without pay. they have spent many days an nually on district activities. Many used their . .personal credit in order to enable the districts to buy naedad ma chinery. The cost of such equipment was paid for an tirely by rentals. MONEY TO LOAN ON AUTOMOBILES * Central Finance Coirp. C. E. Jonas. Manager O'Neill : Nebraska f * 1 Cooperators with soil conser 1 vation districts, who now num ber more than 22,000, have made good progress in the ap plication of their conservation plans to the land during the past 10 years. A few examples will show this Grass seeding by district co operators totaled only 3,721 acres in 1940, but by 1949 the annual seeding amounted to more than 250,000 acres. Total seeded to date is 900,000 acres. Half of this seeding, particular ly in recent years, consists of grass - legume mixtures in the crop rotation. Contouring applied in con nection with these conservation plans amounted to 30,936 acres in 1940, but as of today it totals 114 million acres. No grassed waterways had been establish ed by district cooperators by 1940, but today the area in wa terways exceeds 36,000 acres. A total of 579 miles of ter races had been built by district cooperators by 1940; today the total is more than 18,000 miles. Tree planting has risen from 662 acres in 1940 to a total of 15,276 acres . to date. Farm drainage, of which none had been done by district cooperat before 1910, now amounts to over 70,000 acres. Improvement of existing irri gation systems and develop ment of new ones as parts of the conservation plans has be come increasingly important in soil conservation district activ ities. By 1940, only 1,327 acres of irrigated land had been im proved. Today the total stands at 320,000 acres. In this, land leveling has risen from 1.126 acres in 1940 to nearly 100.000 acres in 1950. In connection with the con servation of water and soil fer tility on the irrigated lands, the SCS technicians aiding the dis tricts have helped district co operators bring nearly 180,000 acres of new land under irriga tion. Of this, more than 60,000 acres are in farms that were al ready under irrigation, where improvements made it possible to get water to land that pre viously could not be irrigated. The rest, 120,000 acres, is in farms where the SCS techni cians helped to develop the wa ter supply and prepare the land for irrigation. During the years there has been a steady increase in the rate at which farmers and ranchers have applied to their soil conservation districts for assistance on their lands. In 1940, the districts received 1,094 requests and the SCS techni cians helped 491 farmers and ranchers work out the conser vation plans their land needed. This year, both the number of requests—4,709—and the num ber of farmers and ranchers aided in working out conserva tion plans — 4,234 — was the highest in the state’s history. Still the number of requests for aid in the hands of the districts at the close of 1949 was 8,904, indicating the large amount of work immediately ahead for the districts. Also, the last year saw the completion of the Mirage Flats f lL U.S.ROYAL MASTER 1 DON'T WAIT-ACT NOW-TODAY! Wl Vl OOT THE ONLY TltE WITH THROE UVES IN OHtl W«’v« got the tire with thru full /arris at safety — renewable at any tuna with op ta 00% more safe aulas WE'VE OOT ... NEW TRIPLE-TRACTION TREAD sweeps, bitea and bolds with the gas atari minim Mopping power in tira history. new Protective curb guard-fr— ^ t™™ .n grinding curb and abrasion. KW EVERLASTING WHITEWALLS — scuff and blaaiah-praog far tha full Ufa af weary tira. ^ /fwt pusattnun for mu m rms/ MIDWEST MOTOR CO. O’Neill Phone 100 hi 1 BLOWOUT IS TRANSFORMED . . . Top pan el is view of a blowout on the Fred Lundberg place neai O’Neill. Harold Young is in the fore ground and Mr. Lindberg and L. F. Bredemeier are in the background Inspecting a 1-year-old planting of cedar, locust and elm. Top picture was taken in spring, 1948. By fall of 1949, when iower photo was taken, the black locust were from 8- to 12-feet high and cedar were knee high The blowout has been “tied down.” Be tween the rows of locust are rows of cedar. “Three growing seasons have made a great change,” according to Mr. Lindberg. (See story on page 11.) Gain New Affection for9Belts ▲ By ROSS A. WILLIAMS Former Regional Forester Soil Conservation Service Blizzards during the last winter made news because of the hardships they caused. But they also made the Northern Great Plains, of which Ne braska is a part, someting of a proving ground of the value of trees to farmers and ranchers. Here are some of the things that trees planted in properly located and properly designated farmstead windbreaks and field i "11 used to be a major oper tion for two of us to open the barn door when there was a northwest wind." Kenneth explained. "It was cold work, too. But now you just open the door and step in." Tne mile-long, 10-row-wide I shelterbe.lt on the John Dick farm near O’Neill, a cooperator with the Holt County Conserva tion District, kept the highway open where the trees paralleled ! it. The former E. A. Edmisten farm, near Page, has a system of shelterbelts extending through land at regular inter vals. The outer belts in both cases were drifted full of snow ! from unprotected areas, but on the fields there was little snow movement. The outer shelter belts are 10 rows wide, with ! dense shrub rows properly plac- j ed. The interior belts are nar rower, but each has a shrub j row. An interesting sidelight in the protection given by shelterbelts came from a man who didn’t have one. He is the late Fred Drayton, near O’Neill, who gaz ed longingly at the grazing land on the Joe Turney place across the road. Turney’s field is pro tected by a wide shelterbelt. You ought to have seen it," Drayton said. "Joe had good grazing land when there wasn't another quarter sec tion within 5 miles that could be grazed." Measurements of the amount of water stored in the tree plantings were made last win ter by the Soil Conservation service It was found that in Nebraska alone the tree plant ings over 5-years-old held snow that contained over 440,000 acre-feet of water.. An acre-foot 11 water is enough to cover an aci e a foot deep or to cover the average city block 6 inches deep. ., W.atf1' ir> the snow held on the fields on the Edmisten farm where there is a series of shel amounted to 353 acre feet. The snow was kept rather evenly distributed over the land, there being only a few small bare spots midway be tween the belts. Largest amount of water held in the shelterbelts measured was in the John Dick planting. I The drifts in that mile of 10 I row-wide trees contained 73.6 ’ acre-feet of water. Since the ground beneath the ! snow wasn’t frozen, most of this snow water soaked into the soil. In addition t o protecting fields during winter, farmstead windbreaks and shelterbelts serve well in helping control wind erosion, wind damage to crops, and gales buffeting build ings. They also attract many birds, a large share of them making insects a principal part | of their diets. This makes liv ing on the farm more cheerful. I A large proportion of the farmstead windbreaks and field shelterbelts include plums chokecherry, Nanking cherry’ or other such fruit - bearing shrubs in the shrub row. These j supply farm families with fruit for jam, jellies and tor canning. Properly located and proper ly designed tree plantings will ; give good protection to land, farmsteads and livestock, and \ make life much more cheerful around the farm home. Soil Conservation Service . "hmcians aiding the Holt Soil Conservation District are rea dy to furnish the needed tech nical aid in developing success ful tree plantings the same as they give technical aid in de veloping other parts of farm conservation plans. ^aam* m ^ wmuHHi WHY IS A CHAMPION? The outstanding athlete in stinctively knows what to do . . . does the right thing at the right time . . . makes very few mistakes. Usually, he has attained leadership because of un usual ability to observe other performers — absorb the teachings of coaches — and put into practice the things he has learned. Similarly, the tavern owners of Nebraska are trying to apply the methods of other successful taverns, absorb the helpful suggestions giv en by the brewing industry, and put this knowledge into practice. The result is cleaner, more wholesome places—and in creased law observance. Cooperate with your tavern man in these worthy en deavors. NEBRASKA DIVISION r United State* Brewer* Foundation 710 Flnt Natl Bank Bid*, sneiteroeus aid ior ureat Plains residents: 1. They kept routes from feedlots to food supplies open. 2. They kept farmyards and feedlots free if drifts so that winter work could be carried on without undue discomfort. 3. They kept side roads open for travel to main highways, where road clearing equipment was used. 4. They stored vast quantities of water in the drifts that pil ed up in them. ' 5. They did much to prevent snow from being blown off the fields they protected, thus saving moisture for the crop to be grown there and also helping to prevent soil blowing such as that which occurred where the land became uncovered. Many farmers and ranchers gained a new affection for their trees as they went about caring far the livestock under the most sesy«re weather conditions in many years. Clarence Ernst, near O’Neill, a cooperator with the Holt county Soil Conservation District, is one of many farmers who | entered the winter with his haystacks some distance from the farmstead. But. a half-mile-long shelterbelt protected both the farmyard, the haystacks and the space between them. Ernst was able to haul hay without difficulty all winter. His neighbors had | to go to the expense of having trails to haystacks opened repeated ] ly. and when snow moving equipment wasn’t available, the live stock went hungry. out the fact that they could n't get to their livestock didn’t niean they went hungry. This is the report of the Dartman brothers, who live near Creigh ton. and are cooperating with the Knox Soil Conservation Dis irngation project. In this the reclamation bureau developed the water supply. The Soil Con ervation Service developed the land for irrigation and handled the sale of the irrigated units. Pms project. 12,000 acres in size, transformed land that formerly comprised 26 dryland farms in to 105 irrigated farms. Progress in the last 10 years has been outstanding. The out look for the next decade is that ’ ’«* accomplishments of soil conservation districts will in crease even more. The landown ers, by their vote, have made !••• technincal and other aid in ■■mservation available to all through independent organiza tion of their own making—units ’f uate government locally ad ministered. Conservation has come far luring the last 10 years. It is likely to go much farther dur ing the next decade. tnct They wintered their cat tle on land in Antelope county, 6 miles from where they live. A 10-row shelterbelt across the north side protects the field. A straw stack was in the pro tected area. "The heavy snows blocked roads so that we couldn’t get to the cattle for as long as a week or more at a time,” said Joe Dartman. "This shelterbelt drifted full of snow, but pre- j vented drifting for several hun- ! died feet on the lee side so the cattle were comfortable and could get to the straw stack. ; They came through the winter in fine shape.” A graphic example of how much a good windbreak reduces air movement in a farmyard comes from the Christ Jorgen sen farm, near Hurley, S. D., cooperating with the Turner (S. D.) county Soil Conservation District, not far north of the Nebraska line. Jorgenson re marked that the north wind can be blowing hard enough out in the open to straighten your coattails, but there won’t be much air stirring in the farm yard. His two sons, Kenneth and Waldo, put it differently. __ I Estate of John Krohn at 9 ■ gSffi r A _ • i - property will be sold at Public I Auction at the farm located 3 miles Northeast of O'Neill, 1 Nebraska, on ■ FRIDAY, FEB. 24TH I SALE STARTS AT 1:00 O'CLOCK P, M. S 125 - HEAD OF CATTLE - 25 viHSir-""""™-'«”2suisrs.“- . 1 Registered Brand. 3; 5 - HEAD OF HORSES - 5 1 brokl^k2HAT«ld Co»:y'“ OUi br°kC: °"* S year «>'* ■>« l 12 Stacks Alfalfa Hay 13 Stacks Wild Hay I FARM MACHINERY. ETC. I ‘ 3 Cultivator; 1 McCormick Mower 6-foot- 1 <;♦. . B I J