Excerpt from Tenure Status and Land Use Patterns in the Corn BeltOne of the most serious land problems of the Corn Belt is soil erosion and soil depletion. Large areas of once-fertile soil have already been rendered useless for further productive use as cropland except at prohibitive costs for reclamation, and.vast acreages of land new in farms are being rapidly washed away. The thin layer of fertile soil is the capital wealth upon which the agricultural industry of the area depends. The consequences of the continued loss of top soil or of its fertility are obvious. The repercussions of this occurrence are not confined to the individual farm.operator'whomust now find another source of income. Farm abandonment means a re duced tax base for local governments, and a lowered market outlet for the merchants of the area. The effects of a decadent agriculture are cumula tive and the whole economy of the region suffers.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.