The 70th Birthday of the Creation of Local Conservation Districts

An Idea That Originated in Montana

September 2, 2009

The creation of local conservation districts was an idea that led to the development of the Standard State Soil Conservation District Law. When implemented at the state level, this idea encouraged local participation, helping to resolve the critical issue of conserving the nation’s soils. Milburn Lincoln Wilson, an Iowa native who began his career in Montana, brought this idea to fruition.

In 1910, Wilson accepted a position at Montana State College in Bozeman as Assistant State Agronomist. In 1912, he became the first County Agent in Montana, working for Custer County. In 1914, he was named Montana State Extension Agent Leader; in 1922, Extension Agricultural Economist at Montana State College; and, in 1924, Director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Division of Farm Management and Cost Accounting. He quickly moved up at the agency, and, in 1934, the year of the infamous Dust Bowl, he was appointed Assistant Secretary of the USDA. In 1937, Wilson was appointed USDA Undersecretary.

When Wilson was first appointed Assistant Secretary of the USDA, he requested permission to hire an attorney. In order to develop changes he would recommend, he felt a knowledgeable attorney would be able to craft proposals using the appropriate legalese and that would expedite approval and implementation. The attorney was Philip M. Glick, who also played a key role in creating what became the Standard State Soil Conservation District Law.

Another key player was the man often referred to as “The Father of Conservation,” Hugh Hammond Bennett, who in 1933 was appointed to head the newly created Soil Conservation Service (SCS). The agency first operated as a part of the U.S. Department of Interior but soon moved to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

For many years Bennett had warned that American farmers were allowing the nation’s topsoil to blow away, leading to what he feared would be “dire” consequences. The Great Dust Storms of 1934 demonstrated Bennett had been correct.

With limited funding, Bennett was able to convince Congress of the need for “demonstration farms” to research soil erosion and help educate the nation’s farmers. Although the programs were effective, there were many who felt farmers would be reluctant to implement effective conservation practices without being locally involved in the process of planning and setting priorities in their own areas.

Bennett discussed this issue at length with Wilson. In a 1990 interview, Philip Glick recounted a conversation he had had with Wilson in which concern was expressed that Bennett’s technicians at the SCS would argue against the idea of involving producers at a local level.

Wilson told Glick he thought the technicians would tell Bennett that, in Wilson’s words, “M. L. Wilson is threatening to destroy what we have built up and what we are going about doing. Where does the best core of American expertise in erosion control now rest? In SCS and its technicians. Where does the power to do something about it rest? Among the SCS technicians. So far we’ve built the demonstration projects. Well, give us time. We’ll go forward and we will get the job done. But now you want to break it up, turn it back to the states and counties.” Wilson continued, “Look how seriously erosion has spread and grown within the United States. Don’t break up the only single sound core of erosion control expertise that we now have in the federal government. That’s what they will say and they are right. But that’s not the whole story.” Wilson went on to say, “What we’ve got to do is to figure out some way in which local units, individual farmers, the counties and the states can come in and feel just as much responsible for the problems of erosion control as do the SCS technicians today.”

Wilson asked Glick to draft a statute that states could individually consider, modify, and put into law to establish local units. Wilson’s vision was that local conservation districts would be established by a majority vote of approval of farmers in the proposed boundaries of the district. “Let no district come into existence unless the farmers want it and approve it in a formal referendum,” Wilson said. “Let the district be governed by supervisors whom the farmers themselves elect. We’ll have these districts functioning as local units of government, established by the people, governed by the people through their elected supervisors, and then these districts should be given the complete authority to plan, to develop erosion control plans, that are district wide. And carry them out.” Wilson told Glick the bill should provide that the SCS cooperate with every single district in the country and lend engineering and technical assistance to every single district in the country.

Glick drafted the proposed statute. Wilson personally presented the proposal to Agriculture Secretary Henry Wallace, then to Hugh Hammond Bennett, and even personally hand-delivered the proposed statute to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who in turn sent the statute to all state governors, suggesting they obtain state legislative approval.

Hugh Hammond Bennett was on hand for the opening ceremony of the nation’s first Conservation District, located in Anson County, North Carolina, on August 4, 1937. Today there are more than 3,000 local conservation districts working closely with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, formerly the Soil Conservation Service.

A Montanan with a keen sense of logic, political strategy, and determination should be praised on this 70th anniversary observance—Milburn Lincoln Wilson might be considered “The Father of Conservation Districts.”

Last Modified: 09/04/2009