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 titled Soil Erosion: A National Menace, which was regarded as his most influential work and garnered the attention of Representative James P. Buchanan of Texas. Buchanan, who was a member of the United States House Committee on Appropriations, helped obtain funding in 1929 for soil erosion studies in the United States. Bennett was also instrumental in the formation of the Soil Conservation Society of America (now the Soil and Water Conservation Society). Government service When the Soil Erosion Service was established as part of the United States Department of the Interior in September 1933, Bennett became the director. He continued to speak out on soil conservation issues, especially through the Dust Bowl years, and eventually influenced the passage of the soil conservation act of April 27, 1935, which created the Soil Conservation Service at the USDA. He remained at the head of that organization until he retired in 1951. Hammond hired Henry Howard Finnell to put his soil expertise to work: Hugh Hammond Bennett, the head of the Soil Conservation Service, put Finnell in charge of Region Six, the hardest-hit area of the country; code name: "Operation Dustbowl." Finnell set up shop north of Dalhart. Areas where the soil was