ABSTRACT
From colonial times concern was occasionally expressed about the effects of erosion on productivity of the land and on water quality, but little attention was paid. Land was so abundant that farmers had weak incentives to husband it. And since farmers found little reason to worry, neither did anyone else. The conservation movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries did not wholly ignore erosion, but its main interest was in preservation of forests and management of the public lands. The 1908 White House Conference of Governors, a highlight of the early conservation movement, took note of erosion as a problem, but primarily in connection with the role of forest and watershed management in reducing sediment damages to irrigation systems and reservoirs (Held and Clawson, 1965).
