Farmers fighting
(Continued from Page C3B)
addition to, not a substitute for,
other programs operating in the
Great Plains states.
Besides controlling wind erosion,
the program helps farmers whose
pet. lived on this farm one mile south country’s first national dust storm had driven
of Winner, S.D., when the top photo was them out after it became unthinkable to grow
snapped on September 10, 1935. The crops on the land or live in the house.
OPEN HOUSE
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Date: Thurs. & fh.
MARCH 5 & 6
Time:
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Place:
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ITj -4 N. H. FLICKER
[HU AND SONS, INC.
land is subject to serious erosion
by water because of soil type,
terrain, climate, flooding, salinity
and other natural resources In
most Great Plains counties, 33
different conservation practices
Route 222, Maxatawny, PA
Phone 215-683-7252
Savings!
All New & Used
Equipment
At Special Prices!
can qualify a farmer or rancher to
receive cost-sharing assistance
Visualize an aenei view of the
ten Great Plains states—a total
land area of 346 million acres—and
saving the soil looks like too big a
task to think about, but it is being
done, said Berg
• Considerable progress is bemg
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made,” he said. "We’ve had no
Dust Bowls since the 1930’5. Much
sod that otherwise would be lost is
staying on the Great Plains.
However, we’ll have to do more to
prevent one in the years ahead.”
Russ Thompson, a rancher near
Lusk, Wyoming, put it this way
‘Despite the especially dry
conditions around Lusk this year,
we were able to manage our ranch
so we did not have to worry about
buying hay or hauling water
"It would have been harder to do
this before the Great Plains
Conservation Program That’s
why I got interested in soil con
servation in the first place ”
Thompson said he’s using the
program to carry out several
practices to maintain good
rangeland These include piping
livestock water to various areas
and fencing pastures so animals
will prqye the forage evenly
f r ® e Coffee
And Doniifci
Lancaster Farming, Saturday, February 21,1981—€39
“I have backed the Great Plains
contract all the way. Nobody has a
crystal ball to predict the future.
The Great Plains program gives us
the flexibility to modify plans as
operating conditions change,” he
said
Last year, Berg said, the Soil
Conservation Service helped
farmers and ranchers practice
conservation on 3.2 million acres of
land m the Great Plains
Among these projects were
163,000 acres of permanent
vegetative cover, 3198 miles of
terraces, 599 miles of livestock
pipelines and 4241 acres of wind
breaks
More than 57,000 conservation
contracts have been developed on
108 million acres in the ten Great
Plains states Nearly 12,250 con
tracts now are in effect on about 30
million acres