A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 391 



LUMBERING 



The removal of the forest by logging has been a very disturbing 

 factor in the Ohio River drainage. But the harvesting of virgin timber 

 in itself has not been as disastrous to the conditions of stream flow as 

 have been the elements of repeated fires and the clearing of nonagricul- 

 tural land, especially in the rougher portions of the basin. 



In the smoother portions of the basin, on the Wabash, Miami, and 

 Scioto Rivers and in the Karst, Bluegrass, and Central Basin regions 

 of Kentucky and Tennessee, cutting was originally done to clear land 

 for raising crops. Available records 69 show that the forest area of 

 Ohio declined from almost 14 million acres in 1853 to less than 5 mil- 

 lion acres by 1880. Similarly, in Indiana, forests were reduced by 3 

 million acres in the decade 1 870-80. * In the rough eastern portions 

 of the basin, clearing occurred later. Leighton, already cited, implies 

 that rapid deforestation was occurring on the Allegheny and Mononga- 

 hela Basins from 1875 to 1907. In the rough Cumberland and Alle- 

 gheny Mountains cutting and culling of the forest waited upon but 

 closely followed development of railroads. 



Since 1900 lumber companies have been rapidly cutting over the 

 remaining forests in the rougher sections of the Ohio Basin. The peak 

 of lumbering in the Ohio River Basin was reached about 1899-1910, 

 with a cut of some 5 billion feet, and has since fallen to the 1869 level 

 of about 2 billion feet in 1929. There is very close agreement between 

 the advance of lumbering, the period of repeated uncontrolled fires, 

 the increase in run-off, and the increase in number of flood crests, save 

 that the damage done to watersheds has rather increased than other- 

 wise with the decrease in lumbering. 



DIVISION OF LAND USE 



For purposes of this report, the Ohio Basin is found to classify 

 broadly into (1) the level agricultural land, which, because of soil 

 fertility and ease of cultivation, has the ability, when intelligently 

 handled, to stand up under the demands of agricultural use; (2) the 

 forest land, which because of its rough, steep, and broken surface is 

 unstable and subject to erosion when cleared. Broadly speaking, 

 this division follows the line of glaciation. 



North of the Ohio River, the level to gently rolling plain is a result of 

 several advances of the ice sheets. In the balance of the basin the land 

 is in the process of eroding down to a more level surface. In general, 

 the glaciated section is farm land, and the major part of the rest of 

 the basin is too steep or credible to bear cultivation. Within the 

 unglaciated regions there are such provinces as the Karst, Bluegrass, 

 Appalachian Valley, and Central Basins of Kentucky and Tennessee 

 which are agricultural. In this report they are considered with the 

 farm lands north of the Ohio River. 



. FARM LANDS 



Fire is not a serious problem on farm land because of the separation 

 of remnant woods by the large cultivated areas. Most farm woods 

 are seriously overcut and overgrazed and these are the major destruc- 



* First Annual Report Ohio State Bureau of Forestry, Columbus, Ohio, 1886. 



6 Pegg, E. C., and Thomas, M. B. The Woodlot for Central Indiana. Proc. Ind. Acad. Sci. 18 :419-440, 

 1910. 



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