SEGREGATION OF FARM FROM FOREST LAND 643 



The extent of the cut-over land problem can be gauged from the 

 official estimate that there are now in the United States 228,509,000 

 acres of such lands, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, 

 Michigan, Alinnesota, Mississippi, North Carolina, Texas, and Wis- 

 consin each having ten million acres or more.*^ What percentage of 

 this great area is suitable for agriculture or grazing development within 

 50 to 100 years nobody can well estimate, but one might hazard a guess 

 that much less than one-half will be put to such uses in the period in- 

 dicated. 



The first need, in connection with the modern land problem, is a 

 dependable land classification, and the rapidity with which this idea has 

 spread is a real promise of early and adequate action. All sorts of 

 unexpected sources are contributing. The Southern Pine Association 

 (members of which are said to own ten million acres of logged-off 

 lands) has a Cut-over-land Committee actively interested in "the 

 definite determintion of the character of the soil ... so that each 

 class may be put to the use best suited to its character. "^° An ex-mem- 

 her of a Federal Reserve bank suggests the formation of a great trust 

 to take over and develop stump lands, the first work requiring that the 

 land be "mapped, classified, and appraised. "^^ 



The earliest detailed suggestions as to such a classification of the 

 waste stump lands seems to have been made by Mr. C. F. Ucker, then 

 of the Southern Settlement and Development Organization of Balti- 

 more, an institution financed by the railroads of the Southeast "with a 

 view to developing the idle agricultural land and latent industrial pos- 

 sibilities" of their territory. Mr. Ucker's scheme ^- proposes to make 

 a field classification of idle lands upon the following basis : 



"A, those immediately available for general agriculture. 



"B, those adapted to grazing and with the grazing, where practi- 

 cable, reforestation. 



"C, those which will not be. during our generation or the next, fit 

 either for farming or grazing to be devoted to reforestation." 



Over much of the cut-over area the pressure of events already has 

 changed the aspect from "farms" to "grazing." Sad experience in at- 

 tempts at agriculture and the urgency of "development" of some sort 

 just now throws the range possibilities of the cut-over lands of the 



*" Report of Secretary of Interior. 1918, p. 15. 

 ^"Cut-Over Lands, May, 1918, p. 8. 

 ^^ Cut-Over Lauds. x\ugust, 1918, p. 18. 



^- Report on Proceedings of North Carolina Forestry Association, January 

 1918, p. 7. 



