A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 1513 



Among the worse situations as regards erosion are those described 

 in detail for the South Atlantic drainages, where at least 5 million 

 acres out of a total of 46 million acres of farm land is so seriously 

 eroded that cropping must be discontinued; the Yazoo River silt loam 

 uplands of the lower Mississippi River drainage, where 783,000 acres 

 out of a total of about 2} million acres of crop land is being seriously 

 eroded; and the glaciated section of Illinois, where about 1% million 

 acres out of a total of 31 million acres is in a similar condition. The 

 same condition exists on smaller portions of most of the eastern 

 drainages. 



These conditions are in part the result of cultivation on slopes so 

 steep and soils so erosive that destructive washing was inevitable. 

 Failure to hold the soil on lands that could have remained in agri- 

 culture by contour plowing, terracing, and proper crop rotation has 

 been another contributing factor. We are now faced with the 

 problem not only of putting this once productive land to use but 

 also of preventing it from doing positive damage through increased 

 contribution to run-off and through the silting of stream channels. 

 That this land does accentuate these two problems immensely is 

 shown by many experimental results reported in the watershed 

 description section of this report. 



Since private ownership did not meet watershed requirements on 

 these lands even while they had agricultural value, obviously it can 

 not be expected voluntarily to assume the expense of rehabilitating 

 any great part of the lands or of controlling erosion and stream flow 

 from them. The situation calls for public acquisition and manage- 

 ment of areas that can be blocked up into feasible administrative 

 units and of smaller units where the silt contribution is extremely 

 large and where private initiative plainly can not be expected to 

 correct conditions. Small isolated tracts normally should be taken 

 care of in private ownership with some degree of public aid. Public 

 acquisition can come in part through tax delinquency and in part 

 through gift or purchase. In any event the cost per acre should not 

 be high. The area of lands once farmed that should be repossessed 

 by the public is believed to be almost 22 million acres. 



On a large part of this land a cover of grass, weeds, brush, and trees 

 sufficient to hold the soil will come in naturally if cropping is per- 

 manently eliminated and the cover is protected from fire and over- 

 grazing, but on some 10 or 11 million acres in more humid regions 

 the gullying that has started can best be stopped by planting trees. 



FOREST LAND 



Private ownership of forest land has usually carried with it no con- 

 sciousness of an obligation to manage the lands so as to maintain or 

 improve watershed conditions. In cutting timber it has generally 

 been the owner's purpose to harvest the existing timber and dispose 

 of the cut-over land as soon thereafter as possible. The section of 

 this report entitled " Current Forest Devastation and Deterioration" 

 has stated that about 10 million acres of private timberland is cut 

 over annually. Only a small part of this is cut in such a way as to 

 bring about perpetuation of the forest. Cutting practices designed 

 to promote natural reproduction have been adopted on only about 10 

 million of the 444 million acres of privately owned forest lands. That 



