Nogales International

Soil Moisture Conservation Program In Western States Given Increased Momentum By Government

WASHINGTON, Feb. 28—Giving increased momentum to the soil and moisture conservation program of the Department of the Interior, which already is fanning out across millions of acres of public lands, Secretary Harold L. Ickes today announced the beginning of field operations by the General Land Office on an additional 1,200,000 acres in 10 western states.

The new work brings the extension of conservation activities into numerous areas where few such operations heretofore have been conducted. It will be carried out under an allocation of $229,680 made to the General Land Office by the Office of Land Utilization. This is a part of the money made available to the Department of the Interior as a result of the transfer of soil and moisture conservation work on public lands from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of the Interior.

The States in which the new soil and moisture conservation work of the General Land Office will be carried out include Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming.

The enlarged action program on unappropriated, unserved public lands will be under the immediate supervision of the field offices of the Range Development Division of the General Land Office located at Santa Fe, New Mexico, Cheyenne, Wyoming, Reno, Nevada, and Portland, Oregon. Initial work will involve making surveys upon which to base determination of conditions and problems of range use and locations of sites for various improvements.

The surveys will cover such physical factors as soils types, degree of slopes, the nature, extent, and distribution of soil erosion, and the present use to which the land is being put. Studies also will be made on existing and potential water supplies.

Since public domain lands under the jurisdiction of the General Land Office are for the most part

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