REFORESTATION OF BARREN AND UNPRODUCTIVE LAND 



By PERKINS COVILLE, Associate Silviculturist, and LYLE F. WATTS, Director, 

 Northern Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station 



CONTENTS 



Page 



The extent of the problem the barren and unproductive area 1485 



Factors affecting the application of reforestation 1487 



Natural reforestation 1487 



Why planting should be done 1488 



Troublesome features to be overcome in planting 1493 



Accomplishments in forest planting 1496 



The reforestation program 1498 



The initial step a 20-year program 1500 



The division of responsibility 1506 



THE EXTENT OF THE PROBLEM THE BARREN AND, 

 UNPRODUCTIVE AREA 



In the United States today, as the result of logging, forest fires 

 and the unwise selection and improper use of agricultural land, there 

 are at least 135 million acres not long ago fertile and productive that 

 are now denuded and unproductive. The idleness of this great 

 acreage is not, however, its worst feature. Far more harmful in 

 terms of public welfare is the capacity inherent in such lands for rapid 

 deterioration or for causing damage to other lands and waters through 

 erosion. As shown in the section " Current Forest Devastation and 

 Deterioration", forest lands are being devastated at a rate close to 

 850,000 acres annually. Another section of this report, "Agricultural 

 Land Available for Forestry", makes it clear that each year an aver- 

 age of more than 1 Y 2 million acres of worn-out agricultural lands, not 

 more than half of which will revert to forest naturally, are being 

 dropped from use. Continuation of this increase in acreage of idle 

 and unproductive land will create a burden such as no nation can 

 withstand indefinitely and continue prosperous. 



Information obtained through the surveys upon which this report 

 is based, supplemented by data on the agricultural land situation 

 furnished by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, gives some idea 

 of the distribution and condition of this huge area of once produc- 

 tive land that through one cause or another now produces little or 

 no return. Forest lands classified as nonstocked and poorly stocked 

 constitute 83 million acres, of which 63 million will not produce a 

 commercially valuable crop within a saw-timber generation. The 

 abandonment or near abandonment of submarginal agricultural land 

 contributes the other 55 million acres. Thus the period of exploita- 

 tion and expansion from which we have recently emerged and which 

 was based on the false premise that our natural resources of forest 



1485 



