The most common reasons for plant failure are planting too deep and over amending the soil.

Why plant trees? We think the following excerpts from “Soils and Men”, the 1938 Yearbook of Agriculture published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, explain why.

“The earth is the mother of us all-plants, animals, and men. The phosphorus and calcium of the earth build our skeletons and nervous systems. Everything else our bodies need except air and sun comes from the earth.

Nature treats the earth kindly. Man treats her harshly. He overplows the cropland, overgrazes the pastureland, and overcuts the timberland. He destroys millions of acres completely. He pours fertility year after year into the cities, which in turn pour what they do not use down the sewers into the rivers and the ocean. The flood problem insofar as it is man-made is chiefly the result of overplowing, overgrazing, and overcutting of timber.

This terribly destructive process is excusable in a young civilization. It is not excusable in the United States in the year 1938.

We know what can be done and we are beginning to do it. As individuals we are beginning to do the necessary things. As a nation, we are beginning to do them. The public is waking up, and just in time. In another 30 years it might have been too late.

The social lesson of soil waste is that no man has the right to destroy soil even if he does own it in fee simple. The soil requires a duty of man which we have been slow to recognize.”

“Within a comparatively short time, water and wind have flayed the skin off the unprotected earth, causing widespread destruction, and we have been forced to realize that this is the result of decades of neglect. The effort to relieve economic depression for farmers has also forced attention on the soil.”

“In agriculture all roads lead back to the soil, from which farmers make their livelihood.”