RECLAMATION OF THE LANDSCAPE 351 



L. E. SAWYER. My work for the past 21 years has been almost 

 exclusively confined to reclamation, principally in the State of 

 Indiana. 



I think the members of the panel have brought out very graph- 

 ically the extreme variation in the different parts of the country 

 in mining and in the reclamation problem. We have had a definite 

 program of reclamation in Indiana since 1926. As a result of that 

 program, less than 5 percent of the land that has been disturbed by 

 mining has not been reclaimed. That is a natural lag. We have 

 to let the ground settle. Nature requires time to break down the rock 

 and shale before we have a planting site. We know what to plant. 

 We are not planting spruce, as the man said. We have adapted our 

 species to the different sites that we are dealing with. We can't 

 apply the same practice throughout the State. We are confined 

 only to the southwestern corner of the State. We have to use dif- 

 ferent mixtures on different sites. 



The same thing applies in many parts of west Kentucky, with 

 which I am familiar, and in Illinois. It is impossible to apply the 

 same law and same practices uniformly over the entire State. They 

 need to be tailored to fit the type of material you are dealing with, 

 whether it be material that can be restored to agricultural use or 

 whether it is land that should be reforested or land that should be 

 developed for homesites. 



I would like to assure you homesites in Indiana are selling today 

 for more than the companies paid for the land when it had the coal 

 underneath. It is simply because we have nice bodies of water. 

 People are crazy for water and they are paying fantastic prices for 

 that land. 



Dr. STEPHEN SPURR. I think it is obvious to all of us, but the 

 record should show, I think, that the elements of the landscape should 

 include more than the topography and the soil : They should include 

 the vegetation, the forests, the water, and the structures raised by 

 man. Although this panel has concentrated upon the very impor- 

 tant part of the reclamation of disturbed land, I think that the topic 

 is sufficiently broad that we should recognize that there are equally 

 serious and in many cases much larger areas which call for the 

 restoration of vegetation that has been destroyed by fire, by over- 

 grazing, or by overcutting; which call for the restoration of water 

 bodies, whether rivers, ponds, or lakes, that have been destroyed 

 by mismanagement; and the restoration of the ravages of human 



