Foreword

EZRA TAFT BENSON

Secretary of Agriculture

ALL MY LIFE I have had direct experience of the importance of soil. As a boy and young man I tilled it, worked with it, and got from it its bounty or, in bad years, wrested from it its reluctant yield. Then and later I learned to love it, respect it, and appreciate its values and limitations.

I LEARNED what every farmer knows—that each of the thousands of different kinds of soils requires its own care and skillful use, which also change from season to season as conditions of moisture, temperature, and crops change.

THESE TRUTHS, so simple to say here but so acutely complex when one's living depends on observing them, were brought home to me again, but more forcefully than ever, when I accompanied President Eisenhower early this year on a trip to survey the disastrous effects of drought in the Southwest, the Great Plains, and other sections. Farmers and ranchers in some of the States had suffered their sixth consecutive year of drought and needed help urgently.

THE PROBLEM demanded action of several kinds—emergency measures to provide for feed, refinancing of farm indebtedness, and urgent conservation needs; cooperation of State and Federal Governments, farmers and ranchers, and other citizens whose livelihood depends on agricultural well-being; and a long-range program looking to the best use of land and other natural resources.

MORE RESEARCH—continuing, thorough research—in the management of soil and water is a vital part of the long-range program. Not only must we learn more about the management of our soil and water; we must encourage the wider dissemination and application of the results of this research.

THAT IS why I am so keenly interested in this Yearbook of Agriculture and commend it to you and your neighbors. The facts in it are the product of years of patient, useful, practical research, and publishing it in this form is the best way I know of making it available to all Americans,

wherever they live.

FOR TO ALL AMERICANS, wherever they live, soil is a basic treasure. Soils produce good yields and keep on doing so if they are well managed. The management of soil is among the oldest of the arts, but none is changing more rapidly than it. We know more about taking care of soil than our fathers and grandfathers did. There is much more that we should know.