408 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



typical of the foothills and lower slopes, has accentuated watershed 

 damage. The stony soils are easily erosible. Erosion caused by too 

 heavy grazing use progresses with special rapidity during severe rain- 

 storms. Trout Creek, near Buena Vista, Colo., furnishes an out- 

 standing example of the results of reduction of cover. Formerly this 

 stream for 20 miles was clear and willow lined, and gave no evidence 

 of erosion. Timber cutting in recent years has been followed by fire 

 and overgrazing. The fertile bottomland soil has now been washed 

 away, all the willows are gone, and the stream is imbedded in a deep, 

 wide gully practically throughout its length. Heavy rains now cause 

 floods which result in damage to agricultural lands and to transporta- 

 tion improvements. 



OZARK-OUACHITA FORESTS 



Lumbering on a large scale in the eastern mountains began about 

 1890. It was concentrated on the pine lands at first, but soon moved 

 into the hardwoods. The first cuttings were usually light, but as 

 time passed heavier cutting became the rule. 



Slashings rarely escaped burning. Repeated fires gradually 

 deteriorated the forest. In many places, especially on the poorer 

 soils, the stands became more or less open or brushy. A recent study 

 of hardwood stands on the Ozark National Forest by the Central 

 States Forest Experiment Station showed that only 1.5 percent of the 

 stands studied were of seedling origin. 



Settlement in the Ozark-Ouachita region began about 1830. By 

 1860 the greater portion of the White River Valley of northern Arkan- 

 sas and most of the Arkansas Valley to the Oklahoma line had been 

 settled. The prairies and oak openings were first to be occupied. 

 A great part of the alluvial and rolling hill land of the main Arkansas 

 Valley has since been put into cultivation. 



Clearing and cultivation of row crops on hillsides has led to rather 

 general erosion as the humus in the top soil was exhausted or washed 

 away, and to subsequent abandonment of crop lands. Many of the 

 hill farms should never have been cleared. Census data show that 

 the crop-land area in Garland and Baxter Counties of central Arkansas 

 has declined by nearly one third, and that a similar decline has taken 

 place in counties in the forest belt of southern Missouri and northern 

 Louisiana. Serious erosion is occurring in the hill lands in north- 

 eastern Texas. Certain of the soil types, such as the loess found on 

 Crowley's Ridge in northeastern Arkansas, are eroded rapidly into 

 deep gullies that not only make further cultivation impossible but in 

 many instances prevent reforestation. Fortunately the shortleaf 

 pine of the mountains and the loblolly of the lower slopes and bottoms 

 bear seed frequently and scatter their seeds widely, and thus quickly 

 reclaim abandoned fields. In many cases, however, fires on the 

 restocking fields prevent maintenance of the good forest and litter 

 cover so necessary to proper watershed conditions. 



In Arkansas, which lies almost entirely in the Arkansas and Red 

 River drainages, the average area burned over annually in the 5-year 

 period 1926-1930 was some 2,350,000 acres of a total forest area of 22 

 million acres, this burned area including 2,190,000 acres of the unpro- 

 tected forest area of 18} million acres. Cutting and fire together 

 have deteriorated the forest on approximately half the total forest 

 area of Arkansas. On some of these lands there is a brush or other 



