MAPPING THE UTILIZATION OF LAND. 

 [Abstract of Article published in the Geographical Review, New York.] 



C. O. SAUEB. 



The principles of geographic mapping, properly so called, can hardly be 

 said to be formulated. Geographic field work is still in its beginnings, and 

 the geographic survey is not even projected. The true geographic map, 

 although based on maps of the sorts mentioned, must attempt to set forth 

 economic conditions. Certainly the aim of such a map would be to represent 

 the ways in which the people of the area make their living and the character 

 of this living, insofar as these things can be placed within the inelastic frame 

 of a map. 



The problem may be attacked, in the mapping of a small area on a large 

 scale. In this way simplicity of material is secured and the amount of gen- 

 eralization is much reduced. Of such a map it may be expected that it shall 

 succeed in building up a panorama of its area, and that this representation 

 will place in full and true light the area both as home and place of business of 

 a group of people. The analysis, thus undertaken, may be expected to bring 

 out the distribution of the significant activities of the area, to suggest their 

 interrelations, and to indicate the local economic opportunities and disabilities. 

 This means a census taking in map form with two principal problems, a major 

 one in the selection of the economic conditions to be represented, and a sec- 

 ondary one in securing proper graphic expression. The present paper is con- 

 cerned primarily with the former problem. 



Since utilization is the key-note, the map must distinguish first of all 

 between productive and non-productive areas, or else, between what the 

 Census designates as improved and unimproved land. In the former classifi- 

 cation the critical element is yield, in the latter, labor. In this way a group- 

 ing of land utilization of the following sort may be arrived at : Barrens, 

 woodlands, permanent pastures and meadows, cultivated lands. 



21st Mich. Acad. Sci. Kept., 1919. 



