Invention and the rhetorical situation : disciplinary dynamics and the adoption of soil conservation policy

When science policy is adopted as a community goal, it is in the context of a rhetorical situation. This study examines how rhetoric and rhetorical principles, such as contextuality, authority and ethos, were integrated in the making of the knowledge about soils and it examines the elements of rhetorical situation: exigency or problem, audience, available arguments, or what can be said, etc. Because soils are extremely complex, being formed by the interaction of the factors of parent material, topography, biota, climate, and time, the most basic principles of soil processes and management escaped the notice of scientists when any of these factors were ignored or assumptions made about them. This was the case when soil science began in the US, their assumptions coming from their training in Europe, where rainfall (climate) much softer than was the rule on the continental US. By the mid-1800s, very bad agricultural conditions in much of the South indicated the effects of climate, acidic parent material, and cultural practices. After the war conditions were worse; tenancy and land abandonment were greater, degradation and erosion worsened. After 1862 the state land-grant colleges provided opportunities for scientific education. The Department of Agriculture was greatly expanding in the early 19(X)s, and a survey of soils in the US was also begun. The soil survey together with the soil science at the land-grant colleges created a situation in which the conditions on land in the South was seen by more trained observers (the surveyors) and the conditions were also recorded. At one and the same time, in the early 1900s, the soil survey and the land grant colleges were developing 1) a potentially effective audience, 2) the logos, or sayables, about the extent and degree of erosion damage, and 3) scientific rhetors who had the experience, knowledge, and commitment to see recognize the problem of erosion. These scientists, led by H..H..Bennett of the survey, also helped further raise awareness among the public andamong legislators. The rhetorical situation was complete when dust storms blew soil from Oklahoma, Texas, and Colorado into Washington, and conservation was established as a policy goal.