Erosion in the Gulgong district, NSW, circa 1945
Source: NSW State Archives
Farmers discuss progress in their fight against soil erosion at taken at “Roseneath” Canadian Lead near Gulgong NSW.
From left: Jim Winter, Jim Baldwin, Mrs Margaret Hollow, Dall Hollow, Clive Smith, Doug Colclough and Vic Hollow.
WATER RUN OFF from higher country caused this big gully in the middle of one of Vic Hollows' cultivation paddocks
SHARE-FARMER Jim Winter sows oats while caterpillar tractor ploughs paddock which was
once so badly eroded Winter had to plough it in four blocks
CONTOUR PLOUGHING on Vic Hollows' farm. The old method of straight up-and-down ploughing is one of chief causes of erosion.
SCIENCE CAN FIGHT EROSION - AND WIN
By Staff Reporter GEORGINA O'SULLIVAN
Pictures by staff photographer Ron Berg.
Gulgong farmers take lead in first big experiment
Gulgong farmers take lead in first big experiment
Eight disheartened farmers, meeting in the living room of a 70-year-old farmhouse at Canadian Lead, near Gulgong, N.S.W., in July, 1943, were almost in despair. Soil erosion was ruining their properties. They decided to take a shot in the dark. At that meeting they agreed to hand over to the N.S.W. Soil Conservation Service a 3000-acre catchment area for Australia's first major demostration of erosion control.
THE farmers are grandsons and great-grandsons of men who joined in the gold rush to Canadian Lead in the 'sixties, and stayed on to farm the rich land near the once crowded mining town. They are Clive Smith, Reynolds Hollow, Dall Hollow. Vic Hollow, Jim Baldwin, T. Rowbotham. Roth and Jim Winter.
War delayed the first steps in the experiment that they believed might save their farms and it was not begun until September, 1945. But last week in the living-room where the first meeting had been held five of the farmers who own the major portion of the demonstration area told me that their "shot in the dark" had turned out a "real winner."
All are impressed by the success of the anti-erosion methods which have been used on their land since the experiment was begun. They have only one reservation. They are waiting to see how anti erosion measures will stand up against a really heavy storm such as that which, seven years ago, destroyed their crops in less than half an hour.
For the deep gullies on their properties were not caused by the windstorms which damage the drier regions of Australia, but by the run-off of excess water from the surrounding hilly country. In the past, they said, big storms had caused more erosion in a few days than steady rains had caused in 12 to 15 years.
When the farmers had their meeting four years ago Gordon Kaleski and Tom Taylor, Soil Conservation Service experts, told them that the Service would provide workmen and modern earth-moving equipment in a demonstration of up-to-date erosion control. The farmers were asked to provide the land.
Erosion gullies had first appeared on properties after a big storm years before that. Since then intense summer rains had deepened and widened gullies in cultivated paddocks until the biggest were 25 feet deep and small ones were two and three feet deep. Some of the farmers had already written off as "dead land" the deeper gullies which intersected their most fertile paddocks.
The 3000-acre area for which Kaleski and Taylor asked contained badly eroded land belonging to each farmer. Some doubted the project, others favored it. But all agreed to give full co-operation to the Soil Conservation Service. The farmers had little to lose and much to gain. When work began in September 1945; the farmers had pledged themselves to use soil conservation methods for five years.
Youthful Douglas Colclough, Hawkesbury Agricultural College diplomate and expert on soil erosion, is in charge of the project. His laconic summing-up of the basic causes of soil erosion is: "Bad farming and unwise use of land". He added: "Rabbit infestation, intense summer rains, over-stocking and thrashing of land by farmers all cause soil erosion.
"Some of the farmers were hesittant about this scheme in the beginning, but when they saw the work going ahead and could observe how the pasture furrows stood up to heavy summer rains they co-operated splendidly."
But the five tall, slim, quietly -spoken farmers were not at all pessimistic when they talked to me last week. While Mrs. Margaret Hollow, mother of bachelor Vic Hollow, poured tea for us in the farmhouse, they gave me these opinions:
"Soil erosion control is Australia's best investment " said Vic Hollow, owner of a 1000-acre farm.
"Erosion is a deadly enemy to the country. This demonstration has shown us that it can be controlled."
"I am jolly glad they chose us for this scheme, because the three gullies breaking through my cultivation areas were rapidly reducing the value of the land."
Vic's cousin, 45-year-old Dall Hollow, was another who endorsed the scheme. He has 300 acres of his 640-acre farm under treatment. "It's the best thing that ever happened to us and to our district." he said.
"Sixty acres of my farm were badly eroded and the rest of the land was beginning to erode when the demonstration began. "My grandfather and my father farmed this land before me, and it has yielded for more than 80 years. But you can't keep on taking from the land without putting something back into it "Wheat is a real soil killer, so I'm following instructions and leaving my eroded paddocks to grass for three or four years before bringing them back to wheat.
"It's not too late to beat erosion if farmers throw themselves into the battle and follow the methods used in this demonstration.
"It's a straight-out job and there's nothing intricate about it. Farmers have only to study their lands and ask their State Conservation Service to send along a man to help."
Share-farmer Jim Winter said one of his paddocks was so badly eroded that he had to plough it in four blocks and skip the eroded sections. Since treatment, some of the eroded blocks have been brought back into cultivation, the paddock is now in one block and the deepest erosion gully has been turned into a 2000-yard dam. Jim Winter told me: "But for this scheme I would have had to do away with cultivation in a few years and let the land go to grazing.
"I have 180 acres in the scheme and as a result I am now cultivating 50 acres more than I did before." Although he was a willing entrant in the scheme and firmly believes in its basic principles, farmer Jim Baldwin is still a little sceptical. He fears that the farmers' fight against erosion might be an all-time job. "I think we have a lot to learn yet," he said.
"We have all gone to a lot of trouble putting in waterways and furrows, but I think the water will carry silt, the grass will grow and in no time we will have to dig again. "I think, too, there should be more dams to catch the heavy rains, because it's the storms that do the damage."
First step in the scheme was to class and divide the area according to slope and soil conditions. Pasture furrows, absorption banks, and dams were made on top country areas which had allowed a run-off of water that caused extensive erosion on the lower lands. These protected the cultivation areas by reducing the run-off to a minimum. Pasture furrows are level banks about half a chain apart, 12 inches wide and deep. Where possible they are constructed on upper lands to absorb and hold a certain amount of water. Excess water is caught in gully dams which lead to grassed waterways. These waterways are wide, shallow channels constructed according to the catchment or the expected flow of water. Fenced off from stock, they are sown with grass and lucerne, and, when well established, take the flow of water from graded banks or ever flowing dams. At Canadian Lead the greatest erosion damage was found in the cultivation lands because of the water run-off from higher slopes.
With the run-off from the higher slopes controlled by pasture furrows, dams, and waterways, the cultivation lands are further protected by graded banks spaced and constructed according to slope and soil conditions.
Banks and waterways absorb all run-off water and protect the cultivation areas from further erosion. Other control methods include contour ploughing, rotational cropping, judicious stocking and grazing, and stubble mulch farming. The farmers' old method of ploughing straight up and down a field was one of the main causes of erosion. Rain water raced down the plough furrows, carrying away good soil as it went. When fields are ploughed according to the contour of the land, the erosion is avoided.
The Canadian Lead farmers will also undertake a tree-planting programme. The trees will stabilise some of the severe gully erosion where the run-off has been brought under control by treatment of the catchment and diversion of the water into grassed waterways.
Australia need not fear the disastrous effects of soil erosion while there are intelligent, stout-hearted farmers and scientific experts to guide them in conserving good earth.
Source: The Australian Women's Weekly (1933 - 1982) Sat 5 Jul 1947 Page 22
EROSION EXPERT Douglas Colclough inspects a natural gully line scoured out by excess water rolling down from the top slopes.
DOUGLAS COLCLOUGH and farmers take time off to study map of district before deciding on their next choice for soil treatment.
PASTURE FURROWS which catch the rain and prevent a run-off of water are surveyed by Douglas Colclough.
CATERPILLAR TRACTOR, driven by Soil Conservation Service employee Bert Clarke, pulls a grader-terracer in Jim Winters' paddock.
Source: The Australian Women's Weekly (1933 - 1982) Sat 5 Jul 1947 Page 22
