GOLD PLATES
used Anciently
Pamphlet Published by
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Salt Lake City, Utah
1963
In the thousands of years of recorded history in the world, ancient peoples have used various means of preserving their writings.
Some have engraved their messages upon rock, such as the Rosetta Stone. Others marked up clay tablets which then were sun-baked. Writings have been found upon wood, cloth, leather, and bark. Patterns have been woven into fabrics in some instances. Probably one of the best known methods of preserving records anciently has been through the use of papyrus.
For many years it was not known that ancient records were kept upon plates of metal. However, in recent times archaeologists have discovered scores of instances where such metallic records were kept.
Same were engraved beautifully upon gold and silver. Others were made upon copper, bronze and lead.
The metal used for these records was beaten into thin plates of various sizes. Some times alloys were used which made the metal very hard and durable.
The most recent such discovery was in the Dead Sea Scrolls, part of which consisted of two copper scrolls rolled up together. The text was inscribed so deeply upon them that it stood out in relief on the back.
One of the most important and interesting of all the discoveries of ancient metal records was that of the plates of Emperor Darius I of Persia (518 B.C.) which were found sealed in a box of stone and bearing a text in three languages. The plates were of gold and silver.
Sargon, King of Assyria (722 B.C.) repeats over and over in his "Annals" that he kept his records on plates of gold, silver, bronze, and lead.
Such plates have been found in many parts of the world, including America and the Orient. Detailed information on them may be found in such books as Book of Mormon Message and Evidences, by Dr. Franklin S. Harris, Jr.; The Instructor for October, 1957, (published in Salt Lake City) and Dr. Hugh Nibley's book, An Approach to the Book of Mormon.
The accompanying pictures in this folder show some of the notable discoveries of records engraved on metal plates. These are on exhibit in various important museums of the world.
In a day when such records were unknown, and vehemently denied by the best scholars, Joseph Smith was shown the reposing place of a box of stones, cemented together, containing gold plates. On these were engraved the abridged account of ancient peoples of the American Continent. Because this was revealed to him by Moroni, the resurrected ancient author and custodian, his story was disbelieved, and his reputation maligned.
Today, archaeological discovery shows that both gold plates and stone boxes to contain them were used by ancient recorders of approximately the same period of time, from the same part of the world, as were the people described in the gold plates deciphered by Joseph Smith.
The Soil and Water Conservation
Society: The Society’s Beginning
Clark J. Gantzer and Stephen H. Anderson
Clark J. Gantzer is an emeritus professor of soil and water conservation, and
Stephen H. Anderson is a professor of soil physics, in the School of Natural
Resources at the University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri.
The Soil and Water Conservation Society (SWCS) has provided excellent leadership in conservation over the past 75 years. As this special collection of essays
celebrates progress made and identifies challenges of today, it is important to
keep in mind the goals and achievements of SWCS founders and members.
This effort traces the Society’s beginning and the successes of its work “to foster
the science and art of natural resource conservation” during its first 50 years.
Discussions on the initial organization, annual meetings, business, Society
leadership, and the Journal of Soil and Water Conservation (JSWC) are included,
focusing on publications and published testimonies that have been a leading
means by which the Society has advanced soil and water conservation.
The focuses of the earlier work of the Society continue today. As Wayne
Pritchard, the first executive secretary of the Soil Conservation Society of
America (SCSA; later renamed in the 1980s to the Soil and Water Conservation
Society), stated in 1984, the real key to the future is the work and planning of
landowners and farmers (Browning et al. 1984).
Before the Formation of the Society
In the early 1900s, recognition of the need for an inventory of soils led to the
establishment of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) State Agricultural
Experiment Station cooperative soil survey. The survey documented the
variation in soils and the need for different soil management techniques to
increase productivity and to control erosion.
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2 Soil and Water Conservation: A Celebration of 75 Years
The formation of the SWCS could not have occurred without the leadership of Hugh Hammond Bennett, who has since been called the father of soil
conservation. Bennett studied geology
and chemistry, and graduated from
the University of North Carolina in the
spring of 1903 (Cook and Lawrence
2015). Bennett said that it was an accident that caused him to take a job with
the Bureau of Soils. His assignment
was work on soil classification and
mapping and observation of soil productivity. Bennett and Bill McClendon
of South Carolina introduced the term
“sheet erosion,” in contrast to rill and
gully erosion, which had been the usual field clues for identifying soil erosion
problems (figure 1).
Amazingly in 1909, Milton Whitney,
Chief of the Bureau of Soils, argued
that the soil was of inexhaustible and
permanent fertility: “The soil is the
one indestructible, immutable asset
that the Nation possesses. It is the one
resource that cannot be exhausted; that
cannot be used up.” Bennett angrily reacted to Whitney’s statement, saying,
“I didn’t know so much costly misinformation could be put into a single brief
sentence” (Cook and Lawrence 2015).
In 1914, F.E. Duley and M.F. Miller at the University of Missouri, established the first experiment plots to measure factors affecting runoff and erosion (Gantzer et al. 2018). In 1928, Bennett included results from these plots
in his circular Soil Erosion—A National Menace (Bennett and Chapline 1928). In
1939, Bennett indicated that publication was critical in securing public and political attention to soil erosion (Bennett 1939). The importance of erosion was
also highlighted by Walter Lowdermilk’s report Conquest of the Land Through
7,000 Years, which contained erosion studies Lowdermilk made around the
world between 1938 and 1939 (Lowdermilk 1953).
In 1929, due to his friendship to Arthur B. Conner, director of the Texas
Experiment Station who argued that “protecting the soil that supports
the citizenship protects the nation,” Bennett was invited to testify before
Congressman Buchanan’s subcommittee and secured an amendment attached
Figure 1
Bennett’s sheet erosion. Photo
by C.M. Woodruff.
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Soil and Water Conservation: A Celebration of 75 Years 3
to the 1929 appropriation for the Department of Agriculture authorizing
$160,000 over four years for soil erosion research. Bennett used the earlier
Missouri erosion plot design for the first 10 USDA erosion experiment stations nationwide. This money was to be used “to investigate the causes of soil
erosion and the possibility of increasing the absorption of rainfall by the soil”
(Gantzer et al. 2018). Astonishingly, the loss of nutrients from erosion was
greater than expected and was often greater than that by removal from crops.
Nitrogen (N) loss was especially noted since it is found largely in the surface
soil, which is most easily removed through erosion.
The dust storms of the 1930s accelerated nationwide soil erosion programs.
The first great dust storm occurred on May 11, 1934, and blew soil from the
Great Plains to Washington, DC. Bennett used this disaster to alert Congress
and the nation to the need to protect farmland, and by lobbying Congress,
helped to enact Public Law 46, which established the Soil Conservation
Service (SCS) in 1935. Bennett’s biography provides additional information
about his important historical role as the first chief of the SCS as well as the
founder of the SWCS who “started and organized—for conservation of our
natural resources and for a better agriculture.” Bennett dramatized the critical
need of soil and water to politicians, and then formulated soil and water conservation practices and pressed forward to translate theory into action on the
land (Brink 1951).
Another early leader in US conservation was Aldo Leopold, who introduced
the idea of “environmental ethics” and appreciated comprehensive farm conservation through demonstration projects that extended land husbandry to
include wildlife. This concept agreed with Bennett’s belief that each acre on a
farm or ranch should be “used for and treated in accordance with its capabilities” (Leopold 1949; Cohee 1987). In 1933 Leopold worked to integrate wildlife
management into the nation’s first soil conservation watershed demonstration,
the Coon Creek project in Wisconsin (Cohee 1987; Meine 1987).
The Society’s Inception in the 1940s
The Society’s inception was in 1941 when Bennett, Ralph H. Musser, A.E.
McClymonds, and J.H. Christ proposed founding an organization titled
“The American Society of Soil and Water Conservation.” In a 1943 meeting
in Washington, DC, Musser stated, “An organization of this kind should be
worthy of the people interested in work in soil and water conservation, and it
should be the medium of expression of the people of this profession.”
The name of the organization, “Soil Conservation Association of America,”
was introduced in the Society’s first publication of Notes and Activities in April
of 1945. During a meeting that year, Bennett suggested a change in the name
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4 Soil and Water Conservation: A Celebration of 75 Years
to “Soil and Water Conservation Association of America;” however, the membership voted to change the name to “Soil Conservation Society of America”
(SCSA) (Pritchard 1956).
The first SCSA chapter meeting was held in 1945 and included a keynote presentation focused on “Upstream Measures as They Relate to Flood
Control.” In 1946 the first issue of the JSWC was printed. In 1949 the Journal
published a Society statement on “National Land Policy” that said, “All lands
should be used in a manner which will insure its continued and permanent
maximum productivity and values . . . In a great measure, our natural economy, our democratic process and our national security are dependent on the
future conservation and use of our basic natural resources” (Pritchard 1965).
The fourth annual meeting of the Society was in St. Louis, Missouri, and
proceedings were reported by national press, including The New York Times.
Additionally in these early years, A. Dams published a highly cited paper,
“Loss of Topsoil Reduces Crop Yields” (Pritchard 1956).
Soil Conservation Society of America in the 1950s
The Society’s effort to educate the public about soil and water was advanced
by the publication of the booklet Down the River (1951). Over 200,000 copies
were printed. It presented the causes of erosion and described methods of
conserving both soil and water for a lay audience. In 1951 C.C. Taylor’s article
“Conservation: A Social and Moral Problem” was selected as the outstanding
Journal article.
In January of 1952 the Society’s first full-time office opened. The JSWC
increased from a quarterly to bimonthly publication, and the article “Soil, the
Substance of Things Hoped For” by Firman E. Bear was awarded the outstanding
article of the year. In 1953, the eighth annual meeting
was held in Colorado Springs, Colorado. A committee was established to determine the meaning
of the term “soil conservation,” and international
soil conservation activity was facilitated with
production of the article “A Soil Erosion Survey of
Latin America” in the JSWC with cooperation of
the Conservation Foundation and the Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
In 1955 an educational cartoon booklet, The
Story of Land—Its Use and Misuse, was published
(figure 2). Over 435,000 copies were sold by year’s
end. Ralph H. Musser testified for H.R. 8914, entitled the Farm Conservation Civil Defense Act of
Figure 2
The Story of the Land.
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Soil and Water Conservation: A Celebration of 75 Years 5
1956, writing, “I am pleased to see the stress placed on the conservation of
our natural resources, particularly soil, water, forestry, and wildlife.” Wayne
Pritchard wrote, “Your proposal to combine conservation and a farm program
with a civil defense program is a new approach to the total problem that needs
to be accomplished. . . . the problem of conservation is a complicated one, and
one in which we need to use many incentives because the urban citizen is
dependent upon those who manage the agricultural land.”
In 1957, the Society’s annual meeting emphasized urban and rural land
planning, and Douglas E. Wade became the first full-time editor of the Journal.
Asheville, North Carolina, hosted the 1958 annual meeting with a theme of
“Land and Water for Tomorrow’s Living.” There were a total of 1,139 attendees.
In 1959, the annual meeting was held in Rapid City,
South Dakota. A meeting
highlight was the issue of
a US Postal Service commemorative stamp honoring
conservation and illustrating the importance of soil
conservation measures, like
contour plowing and the
planting of cover crops (figure 3). Through arrangement with cartoonist Hank Ketcham, a cartoon publication, Dennis the Menace and Dirt (figure 4), was produced (Pritchard 1965).
The federal Soil Bank Program (authorized by the Soil Bank Act, P.L.
84-540, Title I) of the late 1950s and early 1960s paid farmers to retire land
from production for 10 years. It was the predecessor of the Conservation
Reserve Program (CRP), where the government bought back submarginal
land to reduce the need for the government
to support overproduction.
Soil Conservation Society of America
in the 1960s
The 1960s introduced environmental events,
including the book Silent Spring by Rachel
Carson (1962), which addressed the danger
of excessive use of pesticides; the Wilderness
Act of 1964; and the federal Water Quality
Act of 1965. These issues related to land use
were of concern to the Society. To address
Figure 3
US Postal Service commemorative stamp.
Figure 4
Dennis the Menace and Dirt.
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6 Soil and Water Conservation: A Celebration of 75 Years
them, SCSA published a 1960s position statement on “Land Use: Choices and
Challenges.” It stated:
National legislation has been directed toward certain types of land such as
parks, wilderness areas, wetlands, and surface-mined lands. . . . However,
the United States has not been able to develop and adopt an over-all land
use policy to help decisionmakers establish priorities when conflicts regarding land use occur. The nation needs to identify the importance of its
productive agricultural land and develop ways to settle conflicts among
competing private interests and protect the public interest . . . improved
conservation measures must be considered now to help insure an adequate land resource base for the future. (Baum 1981)
The theme of the 1960 annual meeting in Ontario was “New Technologies
in Land Resource Management.” This marked the first annual meeting to be
held in Canada and was attended by 1,256 people. Other 1960s topics included “Land Use: Changing Agriculture” and “Conservation—Key to World
Peace.” In 1965 a speech on “National Forest Wilderness” was delivered at the
annual meeting by Associate Chief of the Forest Service Greeley (Frome 1975;
Pritchard 1965).
Conservation work focused on the causes of lost soil productivity, and the
JSWC published many papers on this topic. Peterson published “The Relation
of Soil Fertility to Soil Erosion” (1964), Heilman and Thomas reported on “Land
Leveling Can Adversely Affect Soil Fertility” (1961), and Eck and Ford wrote
about “Restoring Productivity on Exposed Subsoils” (1962). Shrader et al. published an important paper on “Applying Erosion Control Principles” in 1963.
Development of the Universal Soil Loss Equation for advancing and designing
erosion control systems was published by Wischmeier and Smith (1965).
Additional important SCSA outreach activities in the 1960s included the Soil
and Water Conservation Glossary published in Spanish in cooperation with the
US Agency for International Development. In 1964 a popular booklet, Making
a Home for Wildlife, was introduced at the 19th annual meeting. Also in 1964,
Focus on Resource Conservation included articles on “Outdoor Recreation—Its
Impact Today,” “Policy in Land Management—A Symposium,” and “Using
and Managing Our Water Resources.” The first scholarships offered by the
Society were established during the 1960s.
Soil Conservation Society of America in the 1970s
The 1970s ushered in the environmental movement. On January 1, the
National Environmental Policy Act was installed. Senator Gaylord Nelson
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Soil and Water Conservation: A Celebration of 75 Years 7
initiated the first Earth Day, an environmental teach-in, on April 22, 1970,
and the US Environmental Protection Agency was founded later that year.
The Federal Water Pollution Control Act amendments of 1972 (Clean Water
Act), the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974, and the Resource Conservation
and Recovery Act (1976)—all landmark laws—were approved. The Surface
Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977, regulating strip mining, and
the Soil and Water Resources Conservation Act of 1977 were enacted and
were also of profound interest to the Society.
Concern about excessive soil erosion increased. In 1977, average erosion
rates in the United States exceeded 11 Mg ha–1 y–1 (5 tn ac–1 yr–1) for all row
crops produced in the Southeast. In many counties, erosion rates exceeded 112
Mg ha–1 (50 tn ac–1) on corn and soybean land. For conventional tillage, average
erosion was 21.5 Mg ha–1 y–1 (9.6 tn ac–1 yr–1); for chisel-plowing, soil loss was
8.7 Mg ha–1 y–1 (3.9 tn ac–1 yr–1); and for no-tillage, just 6.5 Mg ha–1 y–1 (2.9 tn ac–1
yr–1). A prescription to address the excessive erosion on sloping row crops must
have sizeable increases in sod crops in the rotation, contouring and terracing,
or growing of winter cover crops to control erosion (Larson 1981).
The prestige and distinction of the Society was greatly advanced by quality
journal articles. The Journal published many papers, including Narayanan and
Swanson’s (1972) “Estimating Trade-Offs Between Sedimentation and Farm
Income,” Anderson et al.’s (1975) “Perspectives on Agricultural Land Policy,”
Lyles’s (1975) “Possible Effects of Wind Erosion on Soil Productivity,” Allen
et al.’s (1977) “Conservation Tillage and Energy,” and Burwell et al.’s (1977)
“Nitrogen and Phosphorus Movement from Agricultural Watersheds.” Foster
edited Soil Erosion: Prediction and Control (1977), and “Soil Erosion Effects on
Soil Productivity: A Research Perspective” was published by the National Soil
Erosion-Soil Productivity Research Planning Committee (1981). The advances
promoted by the Society in the 1970s ushered in important work on topics including improved tillage, the use of cover crops, and the off-site cost of soil and
water loss from the land.
Soil Conservation Society of America and Soil and Water
Conservation Society in the 1980s
In the 1980s, Society policy statements and annual meetings advanced conservation science and policymaking. In the late 1980s, programming turned
to research-oriented special projects. The first of these was a three-year field
evaluation of USDA’s implementation of conservation programs in the 1985
Food Security Act (farm bill), national mail surveys of CRP contract-holders,
and a series of focus groups on the Wetlands Reserve Program. The Society
worked hard in developing information for the 1985 farm bill (Berg and Gray
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8 Soil and Water Conservation: A Celebration of 75 Years
1984; Cook 1984). Conservation policy was greatly affected through the farm
bill CRP and Conservation Compliance Programs.
In 1987 the Society’s name was changed from “Soil Conservation Society
of America” to “Soil and Water Conservation Society.” The change was made
to (1) broaden the Society’s appeal by adding “water” to the name, (2) reemphasize soil conservation, and (3) remove “of America” to highlight and
promote international conservation.
The JSWC continued publishing excellent papers, including the Mannering
and Fenster (1983) and Myers (1983) papers on conservation tillage, an article
by Rodale (1984) on “Alternative Agriculture,” “Evolution of the Universal
Soil Loss Equation” by Meyer (1984), and an important paper on “The OffSite Costs of Erosion” by Clark (1985). The decade was capped by a SWCS
cosponsored conference on cover crops that resulted in a publication, Cover
Crops for Clean Water (Hargrove 1991).
SWCS Membership
The business of the Society is largely conducted through membership. The
multidisciplinary, multi-institutional membership remains a major strength of
the organization. At the Society’s inception, it was not the intention to create an
organization exclusively for USDA SCS (now Natural Resources Conservation
Service) employees, but rather to create a scientific organization to foster soil
conservation and represent individuals in government, academia, and business
working professionally in soil conservation (Schnepf 2005).
In 1965 the Society had about 10,000 members, of which about two-thirds
were SCS employees. Membership peaked around 1977 at about 15,000. It has
been on a declining trend ever since. In 2019 membership is about 2,500, and
the percentage of Natural Resources Conservation Service employees within
the Society’s membership has dropped to below a third. Reasons for the decline in membership are many. In the past, membership was important for
one’s resumé, and becoming an officer, council member, or even a committee
chairman, with good performance, helped in promotion. Initial correlation
between Society membership and membership across federal conservation
agencies was greater than between the Society membership and the SCS
members. That relation shifted beginning in the late 1970s when the Society
narrowed its program focus more toward private land conservation instead
of on both public and private lands generally and agricultural conservation
issues specifically. The deceasing trend might have been accelerated by a
change in the Society’s interests. Historically these included both public
and private land issues that interested members from the US Forest Service,
Bureau of Land Management, and other public land agencies. Ethical issues
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Soil and Water Conservation: A Celebration of 75 Years 9
of federal employee involvement in scientific and professional organizations
also likely added to decreased membership (Schnepf 2005).
In 2020 the Society has 93 local chapters and 25 student chapters. The
Society is a strong supporter of student chapters. One example of these is the
University of Missouri student chapter in Columbia, Missouri. It has been active for 25 years and sponsors soil and water conservation activities throughout the academic year. Student club members have traveled and participated
in the annual meetings, and past student club leaders have gone on to careers
in soil and water conservation.
SWCS Successes
There are many ways SWCS influences conservation. While much has been
accomplished in 75 years of the organization, many concerns, including erosion, nonpoint source pollution, eutrophication and hypoxia of water, and
flooding, remain. The need for conservation and environmental protection has
not decreased (Cohee 1995). However, key to the future conservation work is
improved planning for landowners and farmers, and the application of soil
and water conservation practices on the land and water (Browning et al. 1984).
Annual meetings have shown clearly that the Society can provide a venue for
presenting and discussing the latest in conservation science and policy and
offer professional development opportunities for membership. The SWCS
collaborates with many conservation organizations, government, university,
nonprofit partners, and industries to advance soil and water conservation.
Chapters offer members opportunities to advance local soil and water conservation. In 2020 considerable potential exists for the Society to advance its
mission through special projects to influence and communicate conservation
and to advance public policy in and beyond the United States.
The JSWC remains a great success for the Society and is one of the most
important natural resource conservation forums published since 1946. As
the Society’s flagship publication, the multidisciplinary journal of natural resource conservation research, practice, policy, and perspectives is distributed
to over 3,000 individuals and libraries worldwide. The current issues contain
two sections (A Section and Research Section) designed to engage a diverse
readership: a front A Section contains features, perspectives, and articles on
practices; and the Research Section contains peer-reviewed applied research
papers. The online journal provides access to JSWC issues back to 1981. In
2018, the JSWC had an impact factor (reflecting the yearly average number of
citations) of 2.258 and ranked 14 of 34 titles in the “soil science” category, and
27 of 90 titles in “water resources.”
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10 Soil and Water Conservation: A Celebration of 75 Years
This review of the early years of SWCS history touches on a few of the many
accomplishments of the organization, including the presence of the annual
meeting and high quality journal and the continued support of chapters and
members that help promote soil and water conservation around the world.
References
Allen, R.R., B.A. Stewart, and P.W. Unger. 1977. Conservation tillage and energy. Journal
of Soil and Water Conservation 32(2):84-87.
Anderson, W.D., G.C. Gustafson, and R.F. Boxley. 1975. Perspectives on agricultural
land policy. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 30(1):36-43.
Baum, R.C. 1981. A conservation commitment to the future. Journal of Soil and Water
Conservation 36(5):248-249.
Bennett, H.H. 1939. Soil Conservation, 1st edition. New York and London: McGraw-Hill.
Bennett, H.H, and W.R. Chapline. 1980. Soil Erosion—A National Menace. USDA
Circular No. 33. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.
Berg, N.A., and R.J. Gray. 1984. Soil conservation: “The search for solutions.” Journal of
Soil and Water Conservation 39(1):18-22.
Brink, W. 1951. Big Hugh: The Father of Soil Conservation. New York: Macmillan.
Browning, G.M., M.H. Cohee, N.J. Fuqua, R.G. Hill, and H.W. Pritchard. 1984. Out of
the Dust Bowl: Five early conservationists reflect on the roots of the soil and
water conservation movement in the United States. Journal of Soil and Water
Conservation 39(1):6-17.
Burwell, R.E., G.E. Schuman, H.G. Heinemann, and R.G. Spomer. 1977. Nitrogen and
phosphorus movement from agricultural watersheds. Journal of Soil and Water
Conservation 32(5):226-230.
Clark, E.H. 1985. The off-site costs of soil erosion. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation
40(1):19-22.
Cohee, M.H. 1987. The Leopold legacy for soil conservation. Journal of Soil and Water
Conservation 42(3):142.
Cohee, M.H. 1995. Over 50 years—The conservation movement and SWCS. Journal of
Soil and Water Conservation 50(4):343-345.
Cook, K. 1984. Conservation and the 1985 farm bill: Round 1. Journal of Soil and Water
Conservation 39(3):179-181.
Cook, M.G., and C. Lawrence. 2017. Brief biography of Hugh Hammond Bennett.
https://efotg.sc.egov.usda.gov/references/public/VA/ER1a_H_H_Bennett_
Biography_2019B.pdf.
Eck, H.V., and R.H. Ford. 1962. Restoring productivity on exposed soils. Journal of Soil
and Water Conservation. 17(6):274-275.
Foster, G.R., ed. 1977. Soil Erosion: Prediction and Control. Special Publication no. 21.
Ankeny, IA: Soil Conservation Society of America.
Frome, M. 1975. Battle for the Wildernes, 2nd edition. New York, NY: Praeger Publishers.
Gantzer, C.J., S.H. Anderson, and R.J. Miles. 2018. The centennial of the first erosion
plots. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 73(3):57A-59A, https://doi.
org/10.2489/jswc.73.3.57A.
Hargrove, W.L. 1991. Cover Crops for Clean Water. Ankeny, IA: Soil and Water
Conservation Society.
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Soil and Water Conservation: A Celebration of 75 Years 11
Heilman, M.D., and J.R. Thomas. 1961. Land leveling can adversely affect soil fertility.
Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 16(2):71-72.
Larson, W.E. 1981. Protecting the soil resource base. Journal of Soil and Water
Conservation 36(1):13-16.
Leopold, A. 1949. A Sand County Almanac. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lowdermilk, W.C. 1953. Conquest of the land through 7,000 years. AIB 99. Washington,
DC: USDA Soil Conservation Service.
Lyles, L. 1975. Possible effects of wind erosion on soil productivity. Journal of Soil and
Water Conservation 30(6):279-283.
Mannering, J.V., and C.R. Fenster. 1983. What is conservation tillage? Journal of Soil
and Water Conservation 38(3):140-143.
Meine, C. 1987. The farmer as conservationist: Aldo Leopold on agriculture. Journal of
Soil and Water Conservation 42(3):144-149.
Meyer, L.D. 1984. Evolution of the universal soil loss equation. Journal of Soil and
Water Conservation 39(2):99-104.
Myers, P.C. 1983. Why conservation tillage? Journal of Soil and Water Conservation
38(3):136.
Narayanan, A.S., and E.R. Swanson. 1972. Estimating trade-offs between sedimentation
and farm income. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 27(6):262-263.
National Soil Erosion-Soil Productivity Research Planning Committee. 1981. Soil erosion effects on soil productivity: A research perspective. Journal of Soil and
Water Conservation 36(2):82-90.
Peterson, J.B. 1964. The relaton of soil fertility to soil erosion. Journal of Soil and Water
Conservation 19(1):15-18.
Pritchard, H.W. 1956. Where have we been? Where are we going. Journal of Soil and
Water Conservation 11(1):21-38.
Pritchard, H.W. 1965. Glimpses from SCSA History. Journal of Soil and Water
Conservation 20(4):122-127.
Rodale, R. 1984. Alternative agriculture. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation
39(5):294-296.
Schnepf, M. 2005. Soil conservation and SWCS: A forty-year retrospective. Journal of
Soil and Water Conservation 60(3):60A-65A.
Shrader, W.D., H.P. Johnson, and J.F. Timmons. 1963. Applying erosion control principles. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 18(5):195-199.
Wischmeier, W.H., and D.D. Smith. 1965. Predicting rainfall-erosion losses from cropland east of the Rocky Mountains: Guide for selection of practices for soil and
water conservation, No. 282. Washington, DC: USDA.
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