This year the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) will turn 75 years young. NRCS draws on a tradition of principles in working with private landowners that is as relevant today as when it was a dream to Hugh Hammond Bennett in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

A career soil scientist in USDA, Bennett became convinced that soil erosion was a national menace and that its solution lay in tailoring conservation practices to fit the capability of the land and the desires of landowners.

S imple solutions for all situations would be fruitless.

The crops, the land, and the climate were so diverse that specialists in agronomy, forestry, soil science, biology, engineering, and social sciences contributed to conservation methods.

They worked with farmers to find solutions that benefit- ed the land and fulfilled the landowners’ aspirations.

In 1933, the Soil Erosion Service, predecessor to the Soil Conservation Service and NRCS, began working with farmers in the Coon Creek watershed of southwestern Wisconsin to transform the square, eroding fields into what one sees today—a conservation showplace of contouring, stripcropping, terracing, and wise land use that benefits the soil, air, water, as well as the plant, animal, and human life of the whole watershed.

The carpeting of the land with soil conservation works nationwide was hastened with the passage of the Soil Conservation Act in April of 1935.

Recognition of the first conservation district, bounded by the Brown Creek watershed in North Carolina, on Aug. 4, 1937, established a method for the Service to assist farmers in the conservation districts. Locally elected citizens established priorities and plans for the district’s work.

In Texas the persistence of Mr. V.C. Marshall paved the way for the first soil and water conservation districts which were formed on April 30, 1939 when 16 districts were issued certificates of organization. Mr. Marshall became known as the father of soil and water conservation district program in Texas.

At the Kleberg-Kenedy SWCD Annual Banquet on Tuesday which will be highlighted in next week’s column, a brief history of the Districts was given by Chairman John Prukop.

He highlighted the history of the local District also. Kleberg County was originally part of the San Diego-Aqua Dulce SWCD No. 229 in 1941. Then the Nueces-Jim Wells-Kleberg SWCD #311 came about in the 1960’s.

Part of Kenedy County was annexed into the Nueces-Jim Wells-Kleberg- Kenedy SWCD in the early 1980’s and then on February 26, 1990 the rest of Kleberg County came into the District.

This District decided to split so that landowners could be better represented in each proposed District with their dissimilar and distinct land surfaces, soil types, and soil, water and County Agent drainage needs.

Thus, the Kleberg-Kenedy SWCD #356 became about on 8/13/1997 a still remains a voice for the landowners today.

Then on Nov. 19, 2009, an historic event occurred when the rest of Kenedy County officially became a part of the Kleberg-Kenedy SWCD.

Now all lands in Texas are within the boundaries of a Soil and Water Conservation District. The highlights of the District Banquet will be in next week’s column and the following week more information on the 75th Anniversary of the NRCS will be published.

For more information on the NRCS or the SWCD, call 592-0309 Ext. 3.