A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 357 



the vicinity of Louvale, Union, and Providence, abandoned many years ago, 

 remain as an evidence of the early settlements. * * *. There is little pos- 

 sibility of this gullied land being restored to a condition favorable to cultivation. 

 *. Except where some measure is taken to check the progress of the 

 gullies, they extend with destructive effect at a rapid rate. 



A watershed survey made in 1932 by the Southern Forest Experi- 

 ment Station within the East Gulf drainages indicated widespread 

 occurrence of erosion. In the piedmont section of the Altamaha 

 River drainage 32 percent of the area was found to be eroded. In 

 the central portion of the Apalachicola River Basin 24 percent of the 

 area examined was found to be eroded. This was almost entirely 

 crop land, pasture land, and abandoned farm land. In the Apalachi- 

 cola drainage as a whole 15 percent of the piedmont and 12 percent 

 of the coastal plain was found to be undergoing erosion. In the other 

 basins similar conditions obtain. The total area of land on which 

 erosion was markedly noticeable was estimated at about 1,000,000 

 acres in the Alabama River drainage, about 2,000,000 acres in the 

 Apalachicola River Basin, and more than half a million acres in the 

 Tombigbee River Basin. 



Erosion on such a large scale results in deposits of soil where they 

 are not wanted. The Dunlap Dam (Gainesville, Ga.), with a pond 

 area of 350 acres, was completed in 1904. The drainage area is 483 

 square miles. In 26 years the reservoir was almost completely 

 silted, the volume of silt deposit being estimated at 5,250 acre-feet, 

 or 202 acre-feet a year. The original pond area of 700 acres behind 

 the Morgan Falls Dam near Atlanta, also completed in 1904, has 

 been completely silted. The silt deposit here is estimated at 16,800 

 acre-feet, or 646 acre-feet a year, for a watershed of 1,390 square miles. 

 Some 35,000 acre-feet of silt in 18 years has been deposited behind the 

 Goat Rock Dam at Columbus, Ga., from a drainage area of 4,530 

 square miles. The North Highlands Dam at Columbus and the New 

 Bridge Dam on the Chestatee branch of the Chattahoochee have 

 been silted to the limit. On the basis of silting studies carried on by 

 Army engineers it is estimated that silting in reservoirs on the 

 Chattahoochee River may be expected to progress at the rate of 45 

 acre-feet annually for each square mile of catchment area. Large 

 deposits of eroded material have been deposited on flooded bottom 

 lands, in some instances ruining fertile lands for further agricultural 

 use. The Bureau of Chemistry and Soils reports some 9,000 acres 

 of bottom lands in Stewart County, Ga., to have been thus ruined. 



As erosion on agricultural lands proceeds, abandonment takes 

 place. The control of erosion on abandoned land is in considerable 

 part a forest problem. Deeply gullied lands, according to Bennett, 

 probably cannot be reclaimed for crops without centuries of soil 

 building. Much land in this condition will restock naturally to pines. 

 Where the stiff clay subsoil has been exposed, however, it is at least 

 questionable whether a stand sufficiently dense to control rapid run- 

 off and erosion can develop without artificial aid and some special 

 measures to control erosion. On probably one third and possibly one 

 half of the lands needing planting, conditions are so critical that 

 special erosion-control measures will be necessary if planting is to be 

 successful and erosion is to be controlled. These will include check 

 dams, the plowing of gullies, and perhaps even the use of sod to hold 

 the soil in place until tree growth has become established. Certainly 



