Conquest of the Land Through Seven Thousand Years

This reprint grants the reader a rare synopsis of mankind's utilization and/or over use of the soil throughout the world, and through different civilizations. Societal structures, peace, success -throughout history- rely upon the ability of the soil to feed the people.

In 1938 and 1939, Dr. W. C. Lowdermilk, who was an assistant chief of the U. S. Soil Conservation Service at that time, made an 18-month tour of western Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East to study soil erosion and land use in those areas. This tour was sponsored by the soil Conservation Service at the request of a congressional committee. The main objective of the tour was to gain information from those areas -- where some lands had been in cultivation for hundreds and thousands of years -- that might be of value in helping to solve the soil erosion and land use problems of the United States.

During the l938-39 tour, Dr. Lowdermilk visited England, Holland, France, Italy, Algeria, Tunisia, Tripoli, Egypt, Palestine, Trans-Jordan, Lebanon, Cyprus, Syria, and Iraq. Prior to that time, he had spent several years in China where he had studied soil erosion and land use problems.

After his return to this country, Dr. Lowdermilk gave numerous lectures, illustrated with lantern slides, about his findings on land use in the old world. Conquest of the Land Through Seven Thousand Years is the essence of those talks. It was first published in l942, in mimeograph form, as a lecture. It has been used extensively in conjunction with lantern slides by many school teachers and other lecturers. It proved to be so popular that it now has been slightly revised and illustrated, and is published in its present form with the hope that its usefulness will be greatly extended.

Most of the illustrations used in this publication were made from photographs taken by Dr. Lowdermilk during his travels.

EXCERPT

Some time ago I heard of an old man dawn on a hill farm in the South, who sat on his front porch as a newcomer to the neighborhood passed bye.

The newcomer to make talk said, "Mister, how does the land lie around here?" The old man replied, "Well -- I don't know about the land a-lying; its these real estate people that do the lying." In a very real sense the land does not lie; it bears a record of what men write on it. In a larger sense a nation writes its record on the land, and a civilization writes its record on the land -- a record that is easy to read by those who understand the simple language of the land.

Let us read together some of the records that have been written on the land in the westward course of civilization from the Holy Lands of the Near East to the Pacific Coast of our country through a period of some 7000 years. Records of mankind's struggles through the ages to find a lasting adjustment to the land are found written across the landscapes as "westward the course of empire took its way."

Failures are more numerous than successes, as told by ruins and wrecks of works along this amazing trail. From these failures and successes we may learn much of profit and benefit to this young nation of the United States as it occupies a new and bountiful continent and begins to set up house for a thousand or ten thousand years -- yea, for a boundless future.

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