The Rural Voice, 1980-08, Page 17KEITH ROULSTON
Taking care of our dirt
To the gas company it was just another
job. Dig a huge trench across miles of land,
put pipe in it, and fill the hole in again.
That done,the company could get on with
the important job of pumping gas through
the line to heat homes and run factories.
To farmers along the way it was more
complicated. It was more than just a case of
filling the hole again. It was important how
the hole was filled in again. They
discovered the men in charge of regrading
the land around the pipeline were mixing
the clay subsoil in among the good topsoil.
The pipeline people would have gone away
thinking they'd done their job well but for
years to come the farmers would have been
plagued with poor soil conditions.
But the farmers who owned the land
decided to do something about it. They
decided to stop the work until they were
assured the job would be done right. They
sat themselves down in front of the
machinery and it came to a halt.
"I'm just not a radical man," one of the
farmers said, "but good night, I've got to
live with this land the rest of my life and it
has to give me a livelihood. But it just isn't
business. It's a crime the way the clay is
being mixed with the topsoil."
As the astronauts said on the moon:
"One small step ... " A few farmers at
least have realized how important and
fragile is their most important resource.
DIRT IS DIRT
There seems to be a general ignorance in
our modern world about the complex thing
we call soil. We have come to take it for
granted. Dirt is dirt. Put in some seed,
some fertilizer, add water and things grow.
Sometimes. With varying results.
The ignorance about the qualities of
various soils seems to be spread through
all parts of society. Start at the top if you
like. Listen to the government of the
province say that despite all the talk about
Ontario running out of land we have plenty
to spare. Why there are millions of acres
that aren't even in use right now. They
don't think to mention that the land we are
losing is usually best quality Number One
land while the land not in use is probably
not in use because it doesn't grow crops
well enough to allow farmers to make a
living.
We have others in business who think
soil is just something to scrape aside to
build on. Or they think, like the gas
company, that you dig a hole and fill it in
any way you can and that's that. Dirt after
all is dirt.
But probably the most dangerous,
shocking and bewildering ignorance over
soil is that in the agricultural industry
itself. Once the tradition of the farmer was
of a husbandman, someone with a tradition
of not only taking from the soil but of
returning to the soil what was needed. A
man only had so much land, so much soil
and he had to take the best care of it that he
could. He wanted to turn it over in good
shape to his son. But economics and
changing traditions and work habits
changed all that.
Today the soil is often taken for granted.
A man worries more about maintenance of
his tractor or combine than of his soil. The
land's been growing crops for more than a
century hasn't it? Just feed it seed and
fertilizer and the crops will grow.
It isn't so simple of course. The land
can't be taken for granted. We have plenty
of evidence of that. Recent drought in the
prairies has brought to life memories of the
dustbowl years of the Great Depression.
We've seen too cases in places like Brazil
where jungle has been cleared away and
crops planted. Initial crops in the tropical
climate gave tremendous results but soon
it was realized that this wasn't a perma-
nent type of soil that could grow year after
year. The land had to be given back to the
jungle.
There are many places in the world
which hundreds or thousands of years ago
were rich agricultural areas. Today the
people must import food because some-
where along the way farmers took the land
for granted and didn't care for it as it must
be cared for.
There are people today who sound that
warning in Canada. People like Norman
Alexander of Londesboro worry about what
we're doing to our soil. He's been fighting
a private battle in recent years to make
people see that we can't continue to let our
land run down gullies and rivers into the
lakes. He's been trying to show people the
false economy that says take out all the
trees and fencerows that get in the road of
our big equipment and cost us a few extra
minutes working the land. The fencerows
have gone and in many cases so has a lot of
good soil, picked up by the wind and blown
for miles.
In order to make the most money in the
short term we are misusing our soil,
compacting it through growing corn on
corn on corn, through the use of heavy
equipment, through overworking the soil,
through not putting any plant matter back
into the soil. There are good economic
reasons for present practices. Farmers are
trying to stay in business today and let
tomorrow look after itself.
But for some of our precious soil, there
may be no tomorrow if we don't start
putting back what we take.
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THE RURAL VOICE/AUGUST 1980 PG. 15