From Dusty Shelves: A World War II era article on grassland farming.

It is a common conception that gully control means building check dams, planting trees, plugging gullies with brush, or directly applying to a gully some other individual control measure. This way of thinking focuses attention on devices that stop gullies rather than on ways of farming that prevent gully erosion. A broad, coordinated attack is in general necessary to keep gully erosion under control. A farmer who wishes to keep his fields free from gullies must give first consideration to proper land use and conservation farming on areas that contribute run-off to the gullies.

Where necessary and practical, run-off should be diverted from a gully head before control measures are attempted within the gully. This principle generally applies to gullies of all sizes except those having so small a drainage area that the run-off is negligible, as for example, a gully with a drainage area of less than an acre. In using either terraces or diversion ditches careful consideration should be given to the disposal of the diverted water. If safe disposal cannot be provided, the water should not be diverted. The disposal of concentrated run-off over unprotected areas may cause gullying.

Where temporary structures have been used to control gullies, it has been found that several low check dams are more desirable than one large dam of equivalent height. Low dams are less likely to fail, and after they silt up and rot away, the vegetation can protect low overfalls at these sites much easier than high ones. A temporary dam should seldom exceed 15 inches in overfall height, and an average effective height of about 10 to 12 inches will be better. By effective height is meant the vertical distance from the original gully bed to the spillway crest of the structure. It requires considerable field judgment to determine the most satisfactory location and spacing for temporary check dams.

This material was originally authored during WW II by our government, please make adjustments for costs, values and philosophies accordingly. Typical of much of the USDA’s early propagandistic “ag welfare” outreach, this material is not only condescending and overly simplistic, it also encouraged plantation of varieties generally considered today as nuisance weeds or worse (i.e. Kudzu). There is some good information buried here and we feel it makes a muted official counterpoint to Anne and Eric Nordell’s superior research and writings on the subject. We have to trust that you, our readers, will use your best common sense and critical eye when you sift through this material. LRM