Hugh Hammond Bennett
Hugh Hammond Bennett (April 15, 1881 – July 7, 1960) was a pioneer in the field of soil conservation in the United States of America. He was the head of the Soil Conservation Service, a federal agency now referred to as the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Bennett was born near Wadesboro in Anson County, North Carolina and graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1903. Immediately upon graduation, he became a soil surveyor, and conducted soil studies, both in the United States and in other countries, that eventually convinced him that soil erosion was a serious problem facing the planet. Conservationism In 1905 at Louisa County, Virginia employed in a soil survey for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the subject first realized the link between soil quality and erosion. By the 1920s, Bennett was actively writing about soil erosion for popular magazines and scientific journals, with works appearing in publications like Country Gentleman and Scientific Monthly. He found his opinions opposed by some colleagues, a supervisor stating, "The soil is the one indestructible ... asset the nation possesses ... It is the one resource that cannot be exhausted." He co-wrote a United States Department of Agriculture publication in 1928