208 TWENTY-FIRST REPORT. 



cultivation witliiu a given year, a decade — many decades. Every acre of farm 

 competes witli every other acre in the same crop; crop competes with crop, 

 region with region. With but 49% of the total farm area in the United States 

 "improved," and with our crop yield per acre lower than most of the world, 

 and with the market for farm products so unsatisfactory as to cause a marked 

 falling off in our agricultural population, the proposal for the reclamation of 

 great areas of new lands, desert, swamp and cut-over, meets with little enthu- 

 siasm from agricultural economists. To the statement of the Secretary of the 

 Interior that "There is enough unused land between the city of Washington 

 and Louisiana to feed the whole United tSates abundantly, if that land were 

 properly developed," " the editor of our greatest agricultural paper replies : 

 "Nobody knows about these lands better than does the farmer and the land 

 investor. They would have been improved long ago if their reclamation had 

 been a paying proposition * * * gome day some of these lands will be 

 reclaimed — not all by any means." *' 



Irrespective of the percentage of land truly of agricultural value, but now 

 incumbered with stumps, and irrespective of the rate at which the good lands 

 are reclaimed, great aggregates of land of dubious agricultural character 

 remain. It would seem obvious that there should be a segregation "between 

 soils which can unquestionably be farmed with profit under present conditions 

 and those concerning the farming, of which there is doubt.'"^* 



If lands cannot now be farmed with profit, does the fact that they will 

 probably become available for farming in the future at all indicate that it 

 would be un'wise to devote them to grazing, if grazing can now be made 

 profitable.? And if neither farming nor grazing is now pi'ofitable, and if no one 

 can certify as to the time which will elapse before either becomes profitable, 

 is that a legitimate reason for retaining scores of millions of acres in non- 

 productive condition? Perhaps it is assumed that no other methods of profit- 

 able utilization are available. One cannot look at a stump field and announce 

 that it can be made to produce cotton or potatoes, but one can say with cer- 

 tainty that where there are stumps have been trees, and that where trees 

 have grown trees may grow again. Perhaps one may refuse to place timber 

 trees in the category of crops. Or, it may be, one might consider the possible 

 earning ix)wer of a forest crop as too little to receive consideration in com- 

 parison with farm or forage crops. 



Such points of view would indicate gross ignorance rather than poor 

 judgment. The agronomist must include the timber tree among the other crop 



-Country Gentleman Magazine, Feb. 15, 1919, p. 3. 

 "('ountry (Jentleman Mafiaziiii'. Feb. 1, 1919, p. IG. 

 *-'Soil Survey Viliis ("«Mimy, Wisconsin, M.-ulison, 1915 

 Sauer, 19th Kept. Mich. Acail. Science, 1917, p. 79. 



oauci, Auiii ive|»i. xuieii. A<jau. iseieiice, ivil, p. (». 

 ="A forest which prevents erosion or which protects stream-flow above an irrigated 

 district may pay its way genero\isly even though it is never harvested. "The recreation 

 value of the National Forests is not less than $7,500,000 a year. (Waugh U S F S 



d 

 1918.) 



