ABSTRACT
During the first decades of its work the Soil Conservation section of the Department of Agriculture concentrated on the building of mechanical structures to control the run-off of surface water and arrest the loss of soil. Soil erosion was officially defined as an 'agro-pastoral-socioeconomic' problem (Morse and Department of Agriculture Reports). The first project in which all these factors were to be taken into account and the new approach implemented was the Taung Reclamation Scheme. All groups involved in the Reclamation Scheme were represented and it seemed that the Committee was going to be able to pull the Scheme together. They toured Taung and made a number of recommendations in a report which brought the congratulations and restored the hopes of the government officers concerned in the Scheme. The Department of Agriculture uses similar beacons to delimit reclamation areas or mark off special tracts of land.
