Tracing Land Use Across Ancient Boundaries, Part III: Send Lowdermilk

What had other civilizations done to their soils?

According to Lowdermilk’s later recollection, the idea began when a “thoughtful member” of the House Appropriations Committee asked Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace whether the Department had ever studied lands that had been cultivated for two thousand years or more.

Wallace answered that it had not.

Whatever discussions followed, the surviving prospectus shows how the Department transformed a congressman’s question into the justification for a major international investigation.

A new frontier in conservation

“[W]e are confronted with a new frontier in the conservation of our basic land resources including soils and waters,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture prospectus announced. “But the conservation of soil and waters and the control of soil erosion and torrential floods to maintain a sure basis of national welfare is a large and long undertaking, and we wish to profit by the experience of older countries in these vital problems.”¹

The proposed survey would examine the “results of past and present land utilization” in older countries and gather information that could guide American research, policy, erosion control, water conservation, and flood prevention. Its ultimate objective was “a sustaining and permanent agriculture.”²

Taken together, the prospectus amounted to a Progressive nationalist call to arms. The nation’s future could no longer be entrusted entirely to the decisions of individual landholders. Congress had identified soil erosion as a threat to national welfare, adopted conservation as federal policy, and created the administrative machinery to carry it out. Scientists and government experts would diagnose the damage, identify proper land uses, and direct the transition from exploitation to permanent agriculture.

What the eight reasons added up to

The Soil Conservation Service listed eight reasons for undertaking such a long and extensive survey. Beneath the administrative language were several powerful assumptions about land, population, and the role of government.

The first was that the American frontier could no longer expand.

“Our land is occupied; the best lands are in cultivation,” the prospectus declared. This did not mean that every acre had been settled or that western migration had literally ended. It meant that the nation could no longer respond to exhausted soil by abandoning worn-out farms and moving onto better land elsewhere. Farmers and stockmen would have to remain in place and learn permanent stewardship.

The second assumption was that private misuse of land had become a public danger.

Eroded soil did not respect property lines. It washed into streams, filled reservoirs, increased the severity of floods, obstructed navigation, damaged downstream farms, and reduced the nation’s future food-producing capacity. The Soil Conservation Service therefore framed land use as a national problem requiring federal intervention, coordination, and limits upon the landholder’s freedom to damage resources on which others depended.

Wasteful agriculture would have to be corrected through scientific knowledge. The farmer would continue to work the land, but the farmer would no longer be regarded as the sole authority on the consequences of his practices.

Third, Congress had already committed the federal government to this new course. The Soil Conservation Act of 1935, the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act of 1936, and the Omnibus Flood Control Act of 1936 had formally redirected national policy from exploitation toward conservation and flood control.

The SCS was still a young New Deal agency. Its predecessor, the Soil Erosion Service, had been created only in 1933. Yet the federal government was already spending hundreds of millions of dollars each year on conservation and flood-control programs. A public undertaking of such magnitude demanded research, standards, and evidence. The Department needed reliable knowledge quickly, and the experience of older countries offered a vast field of observation.

Some civilizations had maintained productive soils over centuries. Others had exhausted their lands, buried reservoirs in silt, stripped hillsides of vegetation, or left once-prosperous agricultural regions unable to support their former populations. The Old World could be treated as a collection of long-running experiments whose results were already written across the landscape.

The world was running out of room

The prospectus carried the closed-frontier argument beyond the United States:

“The best lands of the earth are now occupied.”

Land, population, reclamation, settlement, and conquest were inseparable in the document’s reasoning. Countries facing crowded populations were seeking solutions “in different ways,” the prospectus observed, “some by reclamation and conservation, others by conquest.”

The document was written in 1938 as war clouds gathered over Europe. Population pressure and competition for territory were widely understood as causes—or at least justifications—for expansion and war. The SCS prospectus presented conservation and reclamation as another possible response. If already occupied land could be made more productive, perhaps larger populations could be supported without the seizure of additional territory.

That assumption would later become central to Lowdermilk’s thinking about Palestine. The question of how many people a territory could support was not, in his mind, fixed by nature alone. It depended upon the kind of agriculture practiced there, the water developed, the soil conserved, and the expertise applied.

A “primeval continent”?

One statement in the prospectus deserves particular attention. It described the United States as a “new country” that had only recently begun utilizing the resources of a “primeval continent.”

That language erased millennia of Indigenous occupation and land management. It transformed conquest, removal, and dispossession into a simpler national story: Americans had entered an unused continent, developed its resources, exhausted the frontier, and now had to learn how to remain permanently upon the land they possessed.

The prospectus did not yet articulate Lowdermilk’s later doctrine of “beneficial use,” but it established the premise on which that doctrine would rest. Systems of land use could be scientifically compared and ranked. Experts would determine which practices maintained productivity, which destroyed the soil, which could support larger populations, and which should be replaced.

That authority could reach beyond advising an individual farmer. It could eventually be used to judge whole societies according to how productively and permanently they occupied the land.

Turning observation into policy

The findings were not intended to remain in a travel diary or government report. They would be published for technical workers and the public, converted into illustrated lectures, tested with state agricultural experiment stations, and used to reconsider both the SCS research program and its conservation work on American farms.

The survey was designed as a chain of expert transmission. Foreign experience would be observed, recorded, classified, tested, and incorporated into federal policy.

The United States would send an expert into the old lands, and the old lands would be made to answer America’s questions.

Send Lowdermilk

By July 1938, the Department had selected Walter Clay Lowdermilk, who headed the SCS research program, to undertake the eighteen-month survey.

He had studied forestry and geology in Europe, investigated deforestation and erosion in China, conducted controlled watershed experiments in California, and helped build the federal conservation program in Washington. He had spent much of his professional life studying the relationship between the fate of the soil and the fate of the people who depended upon it.

Now he would turn entire civilizations into case studies.

His assignment was to determine what centuries of land use had done to the soils of the Old World—and what those soils could teach the United States before it was too late.

Tracing Land Use Across Ancient Boundaries, Part II: Building a National Defense Against Erosion

Walter Lowdermilk was recruited by Rexford Tugwell in 1933 to serve as the second-in-command of the new Soil Erosion Service, later called the Soil Conservation Service. In 1938, he was tasked with studying how soil affects human life and well-being. He spent two years exploring lands once ruled by the Romans to find answers.

The cold welcome

When Walter Lowdermilk arrived in Washington to meet his new colleagues in the newly formed Soil Erosion Service, Bennett did not offer to shake Lowdermilk’s hand.

Hugh Hammond Bennett had not asked for an associate chief, it was particularly irksome that the new man came from the Department of Agriculture.

According to Lowdermilk in conversations after retirement, Bennett was vain,1 wanted to be in charge of all media and public contact, politically adept, especially in the Department of the Interior; and did not want this this man from the west who possessed a doctorate in forestry and geology in his inner circle. Lowdermilk was an interloper, and Tugwell’s man. Though the two men possessed complementary strengths: Bennett had spent years documenting erosion across American farmland; Lowdermilk brought experimental hydrology, forestry, Chinese experience, and a habit of connecting erosion with floods, famine, and the decline of civilizations, they mixed like oil and water.

2. Making erosion visible

The new Soil Erosion Service had to show Congress and farmers what erosion was doing and prove that it could be controlled.

Lowdermilk helped recruit technical personnel and promoted:

  • reservoir-sedimentation studies;
  • aerial photography and land classification;
  • experimental watersheds and erosion stations;
  • field investigations in places such as the Navajo Reservation and Arizona’s San Simon watershed;
  • cooperation among engineers, agronomists, foresters, geologists, and plant specialists.

The oral history treats this integration of specialties as one of his central contributions. He believed no single profession could solve a problem that connected rainfall, vegetation, soil, farming, gullies, streams, reservoirs, and floods.

3. From emergency demonstrations to a permanent institution

The Soil Erosion Service initially established demonstration projects to show farmers that contour cultivation, strip cropping, terraces, pasture improvement, farm ponds, and revegetation could protect land while maintaining production. After the agency moved into the Department of Agriculture, the Soil Conservation Act of April 27, 1935, created the permanent Soil Conservation Service. Lowdermilk helped shape that legislation and later assisted with the Omnibus Flood Control Act of 1936, which connected damage downstream with land treatment upstream.

Then came the crucial political insight: conservation could not simply be imposed from Washington. Locally organized soil conservation districts would allow farmers to participate in planning and administration. Farm planners surveyed individual holdings, considering soil, slope, erosion, present land use, economics, and the effects upon neighboring properties before recommending a coordinated conservation plan.

4. Chief of Research

When Bennett eliminated the associate-chief position, Lowdermilk became chief of research—a title that suited him better. He expanded the network of erosion experiment stations and sought a coordinated national research program adapted to different climates, soils, crops, and watersheds. The work included agricultural lands, forests, grasslands, sedimentation, plant introduction, and watershed hydrology.

5. The fence post and the road to Rome

Congressional history is filled with pugnacious and eccentric legislators; and Clarence Cannon, a congressman from Missouri, can be counted in their company. In 1945, Cannon, a skilled parliamentarian, wiry, and roughly 140 pounds, punched the ranking Republican member of the House Appropriations Committee, John Taber of New York, in the face and split Taber’s lip.

A fiscal hawk, he disliked all federal spending except to support farmers. He favored parity payments to farmers, low-interest federal farm loans, soil conservation, and flood control projects. He especially liked spending to help Missouri farmers.

The SCS told Cannon and the House Appropriations Committee that in a comparatively short time in the United States had brought about destruction of needed soil through mismanagement that the future of the country was at stake. This was a challenge not only to farmers, but also to lawmakers.

The SCS wanted to develop commercially viable specialty crops for steep slopes and one of the species they proposed was the so-called ‘shipmast locust’ tree (Robinia pseudoacacia var. rectissima), a variety of black locust.

Dr. Lowdermilk brought a century-old fence post made from black locust to an appropriation sub-committee meeting, probably in 1936 for the 1937 federal budget, “Here, this is a one hundred year old fence post,” he told the congressmen. It showed no indication of rot.

This greatly interested representative Cannon and instead of recommending the SCS receive a $50,000 appropriation for their plant introduction work, the committee recommended $100,000, double what the SCS had asked for, an unheard of idea in those days.

According to Lowdermilk, the Roman Lands Survey began with Clarence Cannon’s suggestion that the SCS examine lands cultivated for more than a thousand years and determine what human use had done to preserve or destroy them.

Sources

Walter Clay Lowdermilk, Soil, Forest, and Water Conservation and Reclamation in China, Israel, Africa, and the United States, interview by Malca Chall, 1969, Regional Oral History Office, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

Inez Marks Lowdermilk, All in a Lifetime (Berkeley, CA: The Lowdermilk Trust, 1985), p. 104

Jacoby, Karl. Crimes against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves, and the Hidden History of American Conservation p. 34.

  1. Lowdermilk in his Oral History interview with Malca Chall relates a story that Bennett objected to having an assistant called “Doctor Lowdermilk” while Bennett, the chief, was still called “Mister.” According to Lowdermilk, Bennett then instructed an SCS colleague to approach Bennett’s alma mater and arrange an honorary degree. Lowdermilk carefully inserted “I was told,” showing that he had not personally witnessed the arrangement. He finished with the wonderfully barbed observation: “I was glad that he could get without effort what was a long hard pull for most of us.” ↩︎

Tracing Land Use Across Ancient Boundaries: From San Dimas to Washington

Walter Lowdermilk was recruited by Rexford Tugwell in 1933 to serve as the second-in-command of the new Soil Erosion Service, later called the Soil Conservation Service. In 1938, he was tasked with studying how soil affects human life and well-being. He spent two years exploring lands once ruled by the Romans to find answers.

This is the beginning of Walter Clay Lowdermilk’s journey from an experimental watershed in Southern California to the center of the New Deal’s campaign against soil erosion. A meeting at a plant-introduction garden in Chico would bring his ideas to the attention of Rexford Tugwell and send Lowdermilk to Washington, where an unexpectedly chilly reception awaited him.

Crisis and Leviathan

The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl created an extraordinary alignment of economic crisis, ecological catastrophe, and political opportunity, enabling Roosevelt’s New Deal to transform decades of Progressive thought into bold experiments in governance and conservation.1

The Dust Bowl exposed the limits of knowledge and boosterism. Samuel Aughey Jr., a professor at the University of Nebraska claimed that broken soil absorbed water and released it back into the atmosphere. Land speculator and journalist, Charles Dana Wilber gave the doctrine its memorable formulation, “rain follows the plow” in his book, The Great Valleys and Prairies of Nebraska and the Northwest.

And Walter Clay Lowdermilk, Ph.D. had bold ideas for worldwide conservation. Having completed his graduate work at University of California at Berkeley, he was the principal scientific architect of the San Dimas Experimental Forest. He selected its paired watersheds, devised its original research plan and experimental procedures, and began the rainfall, runoff, and erosion studies that became the foundation of the project.

Knowles Ryerson’s work intrigued Lowdermilk. Ryerson directed the USDA’s foreign plant-introduction program, bringing legumes, shrubs, and grasses into the United States and testing them at Plant Introduction Gardens, including the station at Chico, California.

Lowdermilk had long imagined something more ambitious: an international exchange among the United States, China, and South Africa of plants capable of restoring gullied land and soils damaged by water and wind erosion.

The Meeting at Chico

In 1933, Ryerson telegraphed Lowdermilk that Rexford Tugwell, then Assistant Secretary of Agriculture and a prominent member of Roosevelt’s Brain Trust would be coming to visit the program, he arranged for Lowdermilk to meet Tugwell at the Plant Introduction Garden in Chico.

Lowdermilk arrived carrying the working plan for his proposed international exchange. He showed it to Tugwell, who asked to keep the copy. Tugwell then spent several days examining Lowdermilk’s research at Berkeley and San Dimas and discussing the national menace of soil erosion.

The encounter changed Lowdermilk’s life. In September 1933, he was ordered to leave San Dimas and report to Washington as associate chief of the newly formed Soil Erosion Service.

Washington and Hugh Bennett

Believing the assignment to be temporary, he left Inez and their two children in Berkeley, packed two suitcases, and crossed the country by train. In Washington, he took a room at the then all-male Cosmos Club and walked and walked the few blocks to the Winder Building to report to Hugh H. Bennett.

Bennett did not offer to shake Lowdermilk’s hand.

1 It also imposed new regulations, enforcement, and resentment — the machinery of a new administrative state arriving in places that had not asked for it and did not want it.

Sources

Walter Clay Lowdermilk, Soil, Forest, and Water Conservation and Reclamation in China, Israel, Africa, and the United States, interview by Malca Chall, 1969, Regional Oral History Office, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, p. 132

Inez Marks Lowdermilk, All in a Lifetime (Berkeley, CA: The Lowdermilk Trust, 1985), p. 104

Jacoby, Karl. Crimes against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves, and the Hidden History of American Conservation p. 34.

Lowdermilk’s niece’s diary entry: The Problem with Ben Saada, Conclusion

“Elizabeth Moody, age nineteen and very beautiful, accompanied her Uncle, Dr. Walter C. Lowdermilk and family on an official trip for the United States government, using their personal car and paying their own expenses, to study old Roman lands for the benefit of the US soil conservation service, and American farmers to find out what could be [learned] of the agricultural successes and failures of the past.” – Forward to Lowdermilk’s niece’s diary

Now, the conclusion to The Problem with Ben Saada:

February 2, Thursday—Off in the morning to the souks to take the cashmere shawl to be wrapped with the other things, and also to have my picture taken in an Arabian costume in native atmosphere.

The costume Aunt Inez and I got requires a shirt to be worn between the brassiere top and baggy pants, and since I possessed nary a one, he [Saada] gave me a modern costume to wear. It was of beautiful metallic cloth, but I do not like it as well as ours.

Then he took my picture on the Bey’s bed and up on the terrace with the beautiful old tiles as the background and the old towers of the neighboring minarets. After lunch at our hotel Billy, Westher and I returned to the souks where Billy bought a box, beautifully inlaid—but still a useless thing for a fellow.

After dinner Mr. Saada took the rest of us into the poorer quarter to see their life. It was fete night and should have been very colorful, but the rain of the evening had stopped all gaiety. Little ragged children were curled up sleeping in the shelter of the eaves, and beggars squatted near doorways, but other than these pitiful few, the streets were empty and deserted.

Once when driving by a street, and Negro appeared but when she was asked to dance for us she refused and no amount of pleading could persuade her. We all were Mr. Saada’s guests at the one nightclub of the best standing and danced for a couple of hours and then to bed.

February 3, Friday—We were all invited to Mr. Saada’s for a couscous lunch and it was a delicious one too. Upstairs away from the din of the streets, seated on soft rugs in an Oriental Arabian atmosphere, we ate to our heart’s content of chicken couscous (prepared by Mrs. Sato’s mother) and candy, fruit and coffee to finish off the feast.

Uncle had left on an important appointment. I had decided to change my cashmere shawl, since Mother had one of Grandma Moody’s put away for me, for a native woven wool couch cover.

Mr. Saada told the others to sit down and then took me in another room where he shocked me by saying he loved me and was going to divorce all his wives for me. Aunt Inez felt “something in her bones” and so came in just the nick of time. Smelled a lot of perfume. Mr. Saada gave me some and a pair of slippers.

Back to the hotel soon after 5. He appeared on the scene about an hour later with a couple of records of native dances and the pictures taken the day before which were quite good. We had a good long talk with my telling him not to divorce his wives and with him telling me that someday I would love him and come to Tunis—OH YEAH!!! During dinner he returned this time with a box of candy for the trip.

Took a bath and then to bed. What a day!!

Lowdermilk’s niece’s diary entry: The Problem with Ben Saada, Part II

“Elizabeth Moody, age nineteen and very beautiful, accompanied her Uncle, Dr. Walter C. Lowdermilk and family on an official trip for the United States government, using their personal car and paying their own expenses, to study old Roman lands for the benefit of the US soil conservation service, and American farmers to find out what could be [learned] of the agricultural successes and failures of the past.” – Forward to Lowdermilk’s niece’s diary

January 31, Tuesday—Wrote in the morning and then off for a couscous meal at the Baghdad. Got the car and drove over to the Kelly’s to say “hello”, and then to the souks. It’s wonderful to sit tailor-fashion on a pile of beautiful rugs with beautiful tapestries and old Persian rugs hanging on the walls and in this quiet restful atmosphere sip tea and talk leisurely—the Arab gentleman in yellow vest, soft yellow slippers and flowing white burnoose. He gave me a “wedding present” of two rug seat covers. Mac got two gorgeous old Mecca rugs. While we were sitting waiting for the tea to be poured, the Arab, Ben Saada, which means “man of chance” said that the one who got the last cup of tea poured would be married within a year, and he gave it to me.

Then he took us downstairs into a small secluded room and we sniffed and bought the essences to wonderful fragrances. Chanel, Patou and others by the essence from this very man, mix the perfume together with alcohol and sell them for a price. It was after 7 when we left. He took us in his car to our car, for it was raining. He has a Citroen which compares with a Ford or a Packard for traveling.

February 1, Wednesday—Wrote in the morning and then at 12:30 the Kelley’s took us out to a lovely restaurant for luncheon. Aunt Inez went back to the hotel to write, but Wester, Billy, Mrs. Kelley and I went to the souks to pay for some rugs. We made a beeline or as much as a beeline as possible in the narrow, twisting, dirty, muddy streets, for it had been raining, to Palais de Orient, the shop of Ben Saada.

He was waiting for us, and, while I wanted to pay the first thing, we were shown into a small room where we leisurely sipped tea and ate dates, candied quince and Turkish delight. Then I picked out a leather cushion, the best, and he knocked the price way down. We went upstairs and while showing Mrs. Kelley the antiques we came across the Saracen belt. Mr. Ben Saada said I could have it for 80 francs, and I took it. It was just the right size too. Then he picked out several ancient Roman coins for a bracelet and gave them to me.

He also gave all of us a Fatma’s Hand of Chance. The Bey had a wife named Fatma whom he loved dearly, but one day found her with another man. He was supposed to kill her, but he loved her so much that instead he cut off her hand—the Fatma’s Hand of Chance. Then I bought an old cashmere shawl and a tray and by this time it was very late. Mr. Ben Saada took us in his car to get Mr. Kelley’s car which was left at the edge of the souks. First thing we had a flat which delayed us and then the Kelley’s car wasn’t to be found. We left Mrs. Kelley at the Port de France and then went back to look up telephone messages at the hotel, but there were none. In the meantime Mrs. Kelley found Mr. Kelley and everything was OK.

Mr. Saada took the rest of us home to dinner at the hotel. He had wanted to take us out to show us the Arabian nightlife but uncle was gone all day and hadn’t returned—so no go.

Lowdermilk’s niece’s diary entry: The Problem with Ben Saada, Part I

“Elizabeth Moody, age nineteen and very beautiful, accompanied her Uncle, Dr. Walter C. Lowdermilk and family on an official trip for the United States government, using their personal car and paying their own expenses, to study old Roman lands for the benefit of the US soil conservation service, and American farmers to find out what could be [learned] of the agricultural successes and failures of the past.” – Forward to Lowdermilk’s niece’s diary

Apologies for neglecting the travelogue. I have just completed writing the biography of two fascinating people. it is the story of Walter and Inez Lowdermilk, an American couple who came to see soil erosion as a threat to civilization. Their pursuit of land conservation carried them from China and the Dust Bowl to Palestine, where their ideas about reclaiming the land helped build the case for the creation of Israel.

It now will go to some beta readers to tell me if it is as good as I think it is.

The writing and research relied heavily on this young woman, Elizabeth Moody, who married her high school sweetheart, Forrest Daggett in 1941.

This diary entry is the beginning of perhaps my favorite entry in all of Elizabeth’s tales about her travels with her aunt, uncle, and cousins on the trip of a lifetime.

January 29, Sunday—I had to put oil on my hair before going to wash it for the water is very hard. It took 3 shampoos to cut the oil and I rinsed my hair several times, but even so something was decidedly wrong. My hair felt like a horses’ and was a hopeless mess of snarls and tangles. Aunt Inez came in and brushed and combed it, and it was soap that was still in it. After a half hour it was presentable.

Hurriedly I dressed and raced down the street with Billy to catch up with Uncle, Auntie, Wester and Mr. Abry who were headed for a visit to the souks. We caught up with them and were soon in narrow streets covered above with brilliant-colored scarves and materials hanging on the walls and natives begging us to come in and buy. We drifted into several small shops and looked and bargained. Aunt Inez got several purses and some perfume.

We ate a couple of bananas seated on some steps in the souks—a lot of fun. Then we got in a rug shop and Uncle and Auntie really let themselves go. It was wonderful. We were served delicious mint tea seated cross-legged on a pile of rugs and Auntie and Uncle bought one, and an oriental girls costume, old, with baggy satin trousers embroidered in silver and a brassiere top to match. Then a white net veil with silver design cover face and head.

Oh, boy!

I got a fez too. We all did. We were still looking at more rugs and they serve more tea with cakes, and then we bought some more rugs because the owner said since we had eaten his cakes we were his friends and he gave us a better price. We had a wonderful time. We were in there about three hours and when we came out it was almost dark. Mr. Abry stayed for dinner after which he, Mac and I, went wandering around town looking for the post office and then to dance at the Gaitie.

We visited the palace of the Bey, native ruler of Tunisia. There were only a few rooms of interest, the waiting room in beautiful tiles with a carved plaster ceiling, very interesting and dainty. The throne room with carved wooden ceiling in gold and reds, the old ding room (now the council chamber) in the same work as the throne room and the prime minister’s office with intricate carved plaster ceiling and then a wonderful view from the terrace of the harbor and surrounding city. Lovely rugs on the floor.

January 30, Monday—Got up late and wrote until time for lunch which we had at the Baghdad. A couscous meal with chicken, delicious. Uncle got money at the bank and then we all went to our rug shop at the souks to pay a good-sized bill. They served us tea again and we all talked and Auntie and I bought a lot of handwoven and hand embroidery baby burnouses for gifts. Then while Uncle paid and settled a bill,

Aunt Inez and I went into a shop up the street. It wasn’t pretentious from the outside but some Persian rugs in the windows caught our eyes. It was fascinating on the inside—everything imaginable from jewelry, rugs, native dress, trays, pillows, antiques—you wander from one room into another and into another. A good-looking Arab in a white draped burnouse waited on us and showed us around. The rugs were upstairs, room after room of them. He served us coffee and we found out that he was cousin to the Bey and had three wives, who he loved equally.

That was quite a shock.

We saw then the golden bed of the Bey who slept in the middle with two wives on either side. He showed us his terraced roof, beautifully tiled in yellows and blues with potted flowers around, and far lovelier than the Bey’s palace. I

went back after Billy, Wester and Mac (Uncle had an appointment) and then we started looking at rugs. Two of the most wonderful Persians I ever hope to see. They were gifts to the Bey 70 years ago from the Shah of Persia (intends and blues and one way light and the other dark.) The back of the silk carpet was a wonderful tapestry, but each one while small was $450 apiece. They are not made anymore.

Then we looked at Kairohan rugs and I got one. It is thick and soft and will last years and years. It is in all natural colors and will not fade. It was finally after 6:30 when we left and the souks deserted and closed and quite spooky. We were glad to accept the offer of the Arab gentlemen of an escort and soon found ourselves back in town. M. Abry was supposed to come for dinner but had been away all day in the South of Tunisia and so didn’t arrive until midnight, consequently we won’t see him again until spring. Went to bed but the little cur [Mecktube] cried all night long for me to play with him.

Lowdermilk’s niece’s diary entry: The Slow Train to Souk Ahras

“Elizabeth Moody, age nineteen and very beautiful, accompanied her Uncle, Dr. Walter C. Lowdermilk and family on an official trip for the United States government, using their personal car and paying their own expenses, to study old Roman lands for the benefit of the US soil conservation service, and American farmers to find out what could be [learned] of the agricultural successes and failures of the past.” – Forward to Lowdermilk’s niece’s diary

January 27, [1939] Friday—Wrote in the morning and then after lunch Miss Nora Beth from the mission station in the native quarter to go shopping. I got another ring to replace the one I lost at Bou Saada, a really old ring too. Everything they had was being sent to the New York Exposition.

Visited the mission building but no classes were in session. It was Arabic style and quite attractive.

Constantine is a very beautiful city and interesting. It was built on either side of a rocky gorge by the Phoenicians. Part is very old and part is modern. Throughout North Africa we have noticed that the natives are very friendly and love to shake hands with you. They do it at the least opportunity.

We took the bus out to the orphanage run by Miss Loveless, (old maid-ish, I like her the least.) It was a fine building, modern with lots of equipment and plenty of room. After tea the children came in and sang several songs, and introduced themselves. Soon after we made our adieus and went to the Douglass’ to say goodbye and then to the hotel for dinner with Miss Austin and Miss Ostrom as guests. Packed then and went to bed.

January 28, Saturday—the hotel called us at 5:30 a.m. and we were up, dressed, and breakfast eaten and at the station at 6:15. It was rather filled with white robed natives and it fell to me to get the tickets.

I managed to jam as much as the natives and soon we found ourselves packed in the train with one half hour to wait.

Off at last following a riverbed with rocky mountains on either side. The hotel gave us a picnic lunch and we amused ourselves with the dog, writing and reading. Into a green fertile plain, which was lovely. Probably owned by French colonists.

Our train was so slow. I swear it stopped at every cow pen along the way.

About 12, we came into a large city (we were expecting to get off at 12:30) and out of idle curiosity we glanced out to see what place it was. Much to our surprise and confusion it was Souk Ahras, our destination.

It was a mad scramble of closing zipper bags, putting typewriter away and grabbing coats and the dog. We expected walk into Uncle Walter’s waiting arms but he was not there. A lot of Arab boys rushed forward for our bags.

We were all so loaded down we were glad to surrender our burdens until a fight among eight or ten boys as to which was to carry a zipper bag started. That was a mad scramble to get our bags back and have the errand boys grabbed them from us, and we all shouted “no, no, no.”

Then we couldn’t find the waiting room. Finally, there was so much confusion a station official came to see what the trouble was. I explained in French (what a task) that Uncle Walter was coming for us to 12:30 and that we wanted a place to wait in. He shooed the pesky Arabs away and took us inside the station where we waited.

Finally Auntie couldn’t stand it any longer, and had me ask if this was the only station in Souk Aras.

It was.

Then she wanted me to tell the man that monsieur. was coming for us at 12:30 and we went back and continue to wait until Uncle Walter and Mac finally arrived at 1 p.m. Were we glad to see them! They had been taking pictures along the way.

Well we were off for Tunis at last through pine forests in desert like country.

At Le Kef, we were stopped by an officer who tried his hardest to find something the matter with us. He must’ve been looking for someone for he was sure we had a radio and then he wanted to see Uncle Walter’s movie camera and see what was going on inside of it.

Uncle’s special passport didn’t seem to make much difference.

He even showed his letters from Sec. Wallace with the United States seal on them. He finally couldn’t find anything wrong with us and had to let us go on, thank goodness. Glorious sunset of brilliant reds. I slept for an hour and soon we were in Tunis. Rooms in the Majestic Hotel, delicious dinner, and bed.

Le Kef (El Kef).Photo credit: Getty images

Lowdermilk’s niece’s diary entry. Exploring the Ancient Ruins of Djemila

“Elizabeth Moody, age nineteen and very beautiful, accompanied her Uncle, Dr. Walter C. Lowdermilk and family on an official trip for the United States government, using their personal car and paying their own expenses, to study old Roman lands for the benefit of the US soil conservation service, and American farmers to find out what could be [learned] of the agricultural successes and failures of the past.” – Forward to Lowdermilk’s niece’s diary

Djémila, originally known as Cuicul, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in northern Algeria, about 900 meters above sea level in the mountains of the Sétif Province.

Photo credit: Viator.com

January 25, Wednesday—off fairly early to Djemila, an old Roman city in ruins where Uncle had an appointment with the directoress.

The highway divided a barren plain with a few Roman ruins of aqueduct and low rolling hills, the soil washed off and heavy black rock exposed. A few flocks of sheep grazed on stone and in the distance rose the snow-capped peaks of the Little Atlas.

As we drove on, the scenery became more desolate and dreary with the rocky mountains gouged with erosion gullies. In this utter desolation of today rose the low ruins of Djemila, one of the most important of the old Roman cities.

In the grounds, luxuriant trees flourished, but other than these few, the landscape was utterly devoid of vegetation. The Christian quarter was in quite good condition for ruins. The houses were not well made for their whole emphasis had been on the church and baptistry. A donkey was grazing in the church. The baptistery font was quite beautiful. There were niches with seats for 36 and two periods a year in which baptism took place. The fish which was the emblem of Christianity was used greatly.

Opposite the church the pagan quarter had, it is supposed, built elaborate baths and a Temple to Bacchus, to annoy. One figure estimates the inhabitants at 7000 or 8000 and another at 10,000 or 11,000, which seems more accurate to me from the size of the town. It was destroyed by the Vandals in 450 A.D., and then buried by erosion from the surrounding hills.

The theater and stage were in excellent condition as we looked down on them. Part of the city was still unexcavated and part was in the process. In one place a pillar below the level of the city indicates a lower, older city underneath. There were two forums, for the city was too large for just one.

A large triumphant arch and temple dominates the scene with many steps leading to the entrance. There were huge storage bins for grain and olive oil awaiting shipment to Rome. All taxes were paid in oil and grain. To keep the bins dry the floors were supported by bricks so that they did not come in contact with the earth.

In the excavation 30 wagon loads of olive pits were removed, not an olive tree is left. The Arabs destroyed them all. They still ask what good a tree is.

When the directoress came some 20 years ago, the Capital building was entirely covered and an Arab family had a little mud hovel lived there.

Now it is excavated and one can see again the beautiful granite stones with which it was made. There are remains of central heating systems for the capital and Temple of Jupiter. In the huge market square a measurement table for wheat and oil stands. Heated walls in the baths.

Visited the prison and then to the one hotel for a huge long lunch. We waited around for Uncle to get pictures and at last at 3:30 we were off for Constantine.

Sunset was beautiful and tinged the hills a lovely color. Stayed at the Certa Hotel. Dinner and bed.

The Trouble with Being a Dignitary

Walter Lowdermilk was recruited by Rexford Tugwell in 1933 to serve as the second-in-command of the new Soil Erosion Service, later called the Soil Conservation Service. In 1938, he was tasked with studying how soil affects human life and well-being. He spent two years exploring lands once ruled by the Romans to find answers.

This is from a letter sent by diplomatic pouch to Hugh H. Bennett the Chief of the Soil Conservation Service. Walter was nominally second in command. The letter was sent somewhere around December, 1938, while he was in Fascist Italy. He champs at the bit to do fieldwork, but alas, “our time is not our own.”

We arrived in Rome about noon amidst many surging ideas and impressions. We proceeded directly to the American Embassy where we were expected. We found a big batch of mail and also to our keen regret that Cohee had left only a few days before. We had hoped to see him in Rome, and would have done so had we not been delayed by the slight accident with the car in France, mentioned in my last letter.

We called on Mr. Clyde Marquis at the International Institute of Agriculture and found a warm welcome. Mr. Marquis furnished us an office so that we could have a place to open out our papers and do some work. The Embassy began negotiations for our visit to typical areas of reclamation and torrent control indicated in our itinerary.

A new rule has gone into effect in Italy which requires that outside contacts shall be made through the Ministry of Popular Culture. We found the Minister Alfieri very cordial and willing to make arrangements for a visit to typical works with officials of the Ministry of Agriculture. It took three days for this to be worked out. In fact a man was sent to North Italy to work out a schedule for my visit. With the writing of this letter we are setting off by train to meet the Presidente del Magistrato delle Acque at Venice tonight.

We have had to fit our plans to the customs of the country. The eating habits of Europeans does not fit field work. For breakfast one has a cup of coffee and a roll, a little butter, and a dab of jam if you insist on it. When one tries to get more it causes a commotion in the management. One morning we attempted to get some eggs in addition to our breakfast. The waiter had to go to see the manager about them; the manager came to us and after considerable discussion we finally got boiled eggs, so we have dropped into the way of the country in taking a very meager breakfast. When we go out to the field we are not well fortified for mountain climbing. But then the continental makes up for it by making sure you arrive at a restaurant to his special liking at noon or one o’clock. Then he insists on a lunch which in reality is the heaviest meal of the day. To this important repast he devotes not less than two hours, and usually three; thus in these short days the very heart of the day, and the best time of the day for photographing, is used up within the walls of some restaurant. I would prefer to have a heavier breakfast and take sandwiches out into the field, or even do without lunch and make up for it at the evening meal. It would not be worth the effort, however, to bring about such a change of custom of the officers with whom we have been making our field trips. For once we have placed ourselves in the hands of the officials responsible for conducting us to places of special interest – our time is not our own. From early to late we are in the hands of officials who feel it their duty to entertain us to the limit. So by the time we get to bed at eleven or twelve at night we are pretty well worn out. We do get a large amount of information this way, but we would much prefer to have our evenings so as to write up more of the information, and prepare for the following day. But this is a part of the game which we have to play and we do not complain about it.

Traveling with French and Roman officials has its thrills. Never have we traveled so fast by automobile. Several times we have been driven by the officials in their cars or by their drivers, at more than 80 miles an hour on roads that I would not think of driving faster than 50 miles. The driver blasts out the way for his car with his horn. With an almost continuous hooting of his horn he warns numerous pedestrians and cyclists of the oncoming car. I am yet unable to explain why more people are not killed on these highways. One driver had two horns on his car, each with a different pitch; his one ambition in life was to travel as fast as the road would let him; he warned pedestrians and cyclists by hooting first one horn and then the other, and if necessary both at the same time, to blast the way for his speeding automobile. Some of these drives have been really breath taking as we have whirled around curves over precipitous slopes overlooking valleys or lakes far below. We must say that these professional drivers, or chauffeurs, do manage to make time over the highways.

Lowdermilk’s niece’s diary entry. Algeria:: January 24, 1939

“Elizabeth Moody, age nineteen and very beautiful, accompanied her Uncle, Dr. Walter C. Lowdermilk and family on an official trip for the United States government, using their personal car and paying their own expenses, to study old Roman lands for the benefit of the US soil conservation service, and American farmers to find out what could be [learned] of the agricultural successes and failures of the past.” – Forward to Lowdermilk’s niece’s diary

January 24—had breakfast in the bar with row upon row of bottles staring us in the face, packed the car which had been garaged in the stable with cows and sheep, and were off with the wind still with us. Our road wound among the mountains covered with cork and all at once we were excited to see a whole family of monkeys run across the highway and swing into the branches of the trees above. We kept our eyes peeled for more monkeys and while we came to Pio des Singes and Valles des Singes, still we saw no more of those funny animals.

Out of the mountains and a fertile valley, we were amazed at the size of the old olive trees. Uncle Walter estimated that the diameter of many was 3 feet. Past ruins of an old Roman aqueduct. At Il Matin, Miss Weisner met us and let the way up to the mission station over bumpy dirt roads. When we reached the garage, an Arab man and the mission donkey met us and with Wester on the little beast’s back and rest of us with canes, we started the steep climb up the Rocky, muddy path to the mission. We passed through little villages of mud homes and thatched roofs or tile. Dirty little hovels in which people lived in a small room, windowless, with a fire to cook with in the middle of the room and to furnish light and heat. The natives are very colorful. The women don’t wear veils and all greeted us with a smiling “Bonjour” as we passed. It was about a 20 or 30 min. walk to the mission, but we enjoyed every step.

The Kabyles are a tribe of the Berbers of whom history knows little. They are not Arabs. It is thought they go clear back to the caveman days. “Barbary Coast” comes from the Berbers. They believe that once a spring is tapped and the water starts to flow the blood of a freshly killed ox must run into the water when it first reaches the surface or the well will not be good. In the instance of one well, the blood did not run in and the water was not good. It is very strong with minerals, even dogs will not touch it. It has an odor. We had tea and cookies and visited the dispensary. A native had just brought in her little child with a dirty scarf around its ankle. The poor child whimpered and revealed an ugly hole filled with pus on her ankle. It was a grisly sight and the dirty mother wiped off the pus with the dirty scarf. That was the final straw. We copied poems until our couscous lunch which was delicious and was prepared by an excellent native cook can. In the afternoon we visited the little girls school. They were such a colorful picture, more like gypsy children (tattooed foreheads). They have a bath once a week at school. Sang us two songs one in Maybile and one in French. Miss Weisner told us about Moulu, her Arab man, who was so proud of a day’s work he did in the garden. The mission garden was terraced to keep the soil from washing away and Moulu spent the entire day taking out a terrorist and smoothing it out and planting the onions and rose up and down! Olives are the main industry. One man may own the ground around a tree, another the tree. Sometimes one branch belongs to one native and another to another when it is time to pick the olives the chief gives the signal and everybody starts work at once. After several days they have a big couscous feast and do not work. Then the signal is given again and work recommences. In this way everyone is busy and no olives are snitched. The olives are pressed in a crude stone press pushed either by a donkey or a woman. The women refine it by letting the oil run through their fingers. We smelled some and it looked and smelled awful. The women looked 70 when they’re really not more than 40. It must be an awful life. It just tears my heart to see them. More tea and then down the mountainside to the car. It was almost dark when we got there. Our destination was Setif and the road let us by the foaming, frothing Mediterranean dashing against rocky cliffs. I do wish it might have been light. Then we turned inland down a rocky gorge. I dozed half of the time and it was almost 10 PM when we reached Setif. To bed immediately.