Los Banos Rotary Club History
Soil Expert Is Rotary Speaker

Fred Herbert, assistant state soil conservationist of the U.S. Soil Conservation Service, addressed the Rotary Club Tuesday on the subject of soil conservation, which he pronounced the most important material problem with which the United States is faced today.

Soil, he said, is a live, tangible thing that can be healthy or sick, that can be identified as a thin film of life that extends over the surface of the earth in a layer averaging 4 or 5 inches.

Reciting historical happenings to prove his point, Herbert pointed out that once powerful nations had gone out of existence solely because their citizens neglected and depleted the soil resources. And, he emphasized, today the United States has lost more than one-third of its once available soil, and this tragic loss is continuing at an alarming rate. Water erosion alone, he said, destroys soil that is the equivalent of 10,000 100-acre farms every year.
California is no exception, and our natural soil resources are being depleted at an unbelieveable rate. Referring to the dust storms that are now threatening the southern part of the valley, Herbert quoted leading national scientists as declaring that dust clouds are more terrible than atomic bombs.
Emphasizing the need for effective soil conservation practices, he lauded the work that is now being accomplished in this area by the Los Banos Soil Conservation District, and urged that farmers not now within the district should interest themselves in its possibilities and make plans to either join the present district or to form separate districts of their own, in order to avail themselves of the free services that will be provided by the government in the furtherance of soil conservation practices.

October 11, 1949

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