152 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



the successive stages are as follows: (1) Abandoned for cultivated crops 

 and used as a permanent hay meadow; (2) abandoned for hay and used 

 as permanent pasture; (3) gradual encroachment of brush on the per- 

 manent past are; (4) the gradual seeding and growth of trees and 

 return to forest. In the South livestock is relatively less important 

 and the use of the land for hay and pasture is more frequently omitted. 

 There are instances of the omission of the brush stage where the trees 

 develop with very little growth of herbaceous plants and shrubs. 

 Changing economic conditions may cause land in some stage of 

 abandonment to be placed again in cultivation. Land which has been 

 exhausted by cropping may be abandoned and allowed to complete 

 the process and grow into forest, then be cleared, and again put into 

 cultivation. In such cases there is developed a cycle of land use. 

 Prior to the introduction of fertilizers this cycle of land use was more 

 common in the South. There are areas where this cycle of land use 

 is still going on. 



Farm abandonment is the result of a complex of forces. Certain 

 of these forces are more important in some areas than in others. Sel- 

 dom, if ever, do these forces operate singly. - In one area one force 

 may appear to be, on superficial examination, the sole cause of 

 abandonment, when in reality other causes have cooperated to pro- 

 duce the result. Land has been operated so lacking in fertility, so 

 rough in topography, or so stony, that it has not been profitable 

 except under especially favorable conditions. After more or less 

 effort has been expended the land has been abandoned. Other land 

 may have been profitable or reasonably profitable when first culti- 

 vated but its fertility may have been depleted through continued 

 cropping without restoring the fertility removed or a much more 

 important factor through erosion. Erosion has been particularly 

 important in certain areas in bringing about abandonment of land 

 for agricultural production. 



In addition to these physical factors economic factors have been 

 important. Improvements in transportation made possible the 

 opening up of the land west of the Alleghenies and the settlers there 

 were able to ship their products and sell them at prices below what 

 the eastern farmer could afford to take. At first it was the less perish- 

 able cereals, wool, live cattle and hogs; then with the development of 

 refrigeration, fresh meat and dairy products, fruit and truck crops 

 came from areas where climate, soil, and other natural conditions 

 favored their production. The development of machinery has also 

 been a most important factor in effecting the abandonment of rough 

 stony land in particular. While machinery was adapted to the more 

 level land such as the prairies of the Corn Belt and the Great Plains 

 region and enabled the farmers there to produce at a lower cost, many 

 areas of rough topography were not adapted to these labor saving 

 methods and hence could not compete with the farmer on the more 

 level land. These improvements in transportation and machinery 

 have led to the abandonment of much land which lacked natural 

 advantages but which had been put into cultivation prior to these 

 developments. 



At the same time that this competition from the more fertile, level 

 land was lowering the income of the farmers in the less fertile, rougher 

 land the development of commerce and manufactures offered oppor- 

 tunities which attracted people from the farms to the cities. Where 



