Technical and other assistance is provided to all of these districts through a memorandum of understanding to help cooperating farmers and ranchers carry out coordinated soil and water conservation programs. The work is carried out through cooperative agreements between the farmers and the district governing body. The Soil Conservation Service furnishes information needed, so that farmers and ranchers can make their own decisions in making proper land use adjustments, and in applying the needed soil and water conservation practices. The following table shows the new cooperators and the basic plans developed during fiscal year 1957. The cumulative progress in numbers of cooperators and basic plans as of June 30, 1957, is also shown.

TABLE 2.-Conservation plans prepared and acreage covered, in soil conservation districts with Soil Conservation Service assistance during fiscal year 1957, and active district cooperators as of June 30, 1957

Grand total... 122, 492 37, 712, 240 92, 660 27, 593, 832 11,727, 682 515, 302, 750 21, 161, 745 326, 053, 673

1 Net increase of 83,616 in cumulative soil conservation district cooperators during 1957.

* Net increase of 58,941 in cumulative basic plans during 1957.

As of June 30, 1957, a total of 1,727,600 farmers and ranchers were cooperating with districts. These cooperators' land contained more than 515 million acres. Basic conservation plans had been prepared by these cooperators with SCS assistance on about 1,162,000 farms and ranches, containing more than 326 million

acres.

Some of the major soil and water conservation practices, used nationwide, that were applied in 1957 fiscal year through farmer-district cooperation are shown in table 3.

TABLE 3.-Soil conservation practices: Applied through farmer-district cooperation, with Soil Conservation Service assistance, by States, fiscal year, 19571

TABLE 3. Soil conservation practices: Applied through farmer-district cooperation, with Soil Conservation Service assistance, by States, fiscal year, 19571-Continued

I Data shown are for some principal practices on which reports are received nationally. In addition there are many other practices on which work is done.

In addition to the 12 main practices shown, many other important practices were applied in local programs through farmer-district cooperation and through cost sharing. The above-listed totals include the amounts of practices on which the SCS furnished assistance under the conservation operations program and the ACP 5-percent funds transferred to the Service. Since many of these practices on which both technical assistance and cost sharing were applied occurred on the same farms, it is impractical to separate them or segregate out the different amounts applied on the various farms under the two programs.

The SCS provides technical assistance in making group enterprise plans serving several adjoining farms for improving group drainage and group irrigation. The number of both types of jobs and acreage, with three of the main practices applied in fiscal year 1957, are shown in the following table.

TABLE 4.-Group enterprise jobs on which work was performed with SCS technical assistance, including ACP pooling agreements, in fiscal year 1957

As a part of the conservation operations during 1957, the Soil Conservation Service in cooperation with the State experiment stations made soil surveys on nearly 35 million acres. Standard soil surveys for publication and soil conservation surveys for immediate use in farm planning continued in most of the States throughout the year. The acreage of both types mapped during fiscal year 1957 and the cumulative totals in each State as of June 30, 1957, are shown in the attached table 5.

TABLE 5.-Soil surveys: Total acreage mapped within soil conservation districts, by States, fiscal year 1957 and cumulative to June 30, 1957

1 Soil surveys of the Soil Conservation Service showing kinds of sil, slope, degree of erosion, and present land use are used to determine land capabilities for conservation planning and treatment of entire farms and ranches and of group enterprises, including about 112 million acres of standard sil surveys.

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