Word: soils
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Agricultural Engineer Clarence Hansen and Agronomist A. Earl Erickson began working on the idea seven years ago when they noticed that certain areas of Michigan produced a high yield of crops from loose, sandy soil. The soil was productive, they realized, because an underlying layer of clay was trap ping rain water instead of allowing it to drain away, thus keeping the surface soil moist. "We decided to mimic these soils," says Erickson...
Easier decided than done. Neither artificial layers of clay nor sheets of polyethylene film placed two feet below the surface succeeded in retaining moisture. Rain water leaked through seams or holes, the soil dried out, and test crops fared badly. Then, at the suggestion of the American Oil Co., the researchers began experimenting with asphalt for their water barrier. Once they had perfected their technique, the results were immediate and bountiful...
Also for Paddyfields. Trial plantings of cabbage yielded 505 crates per acre of asphalt-layered soil, compared with 260 crates for untreated acres. Potato yields rose 50% and cucumbers as much as 100%. The economics were even more impressive. With cabbage selling at $2 per crate, the increased yield would bring a farmer added revenue of $490 per acre, allowing him to pay off the cost of the asphalt layer-about $225 per acre-with his first harvest. Furthermore, Hansen and Erickson estimate, the underground asphalt will not deteriorate for at least 15 years...
...praised part of the antipoverty program, resulted directly from a meeting of Lady Bird with representatives of the Farmers' Union. Now, in pilot projects in four states, retired farmers from 55 to 78 years old work three or four days a week using their know-how with the soil to carry out roadside beautification projects...
Ardrey wants to adjourn the biological debate by accepting the territorial principle as a key to the understanding of man and as a solution to all his behavior problems. Why does the Russian collective farmer only listlessly till state soil? Because, says Ardrey, the dispossessed planarian worm lost his zest for life and slipped this attitude into the evolutionary stream untold millions of years...