SECTION II 



CONDITIONS OF AREAS IN WHICH FARM RETIREMENT IS 



PROPOSED' 



Introduction 



The following discussion is limited to an analysis and 

 description of social, economic, and to a lesser extent, 

 physical conditions of those areas from which it is pro- 

 posed to retire a substantial proportion of the farms 

 from arable agriculture. Such areas are indicated in 

 section I of this volume. A discussion of the program 

 for bringing about tlie retirement of the farms and tlie 

 conversion of the land to a more desirable use is taken 

 up in section III. 



The land in the areas from which it is proposed to 

 retire a considerable number of farms is not only 

 substandard for agricultural production, but also so 

 poor in geographic location that opportunities for 

 employment off the farm from which supplementary 

 income might be secured are almost negligible. This 

 is the land commonly referred to as "submarginal 

 land." The continued agricultural occupance of such 

 land has created and continues to create social ail- 

 ments which are both acute and far-reaching in their 

 effects. The general welfare would be better served 

 if a vast amount of this land were removed from 

 arable farming and devoted to other purposes. There 

 is all too obviously little possibility of improving the 

 condition of farm inhabitants in such areas as long as 

 they remain in their present location and number. As 

 a consequence, a considerable number of the occupants 

 will have to be moved in order to effect a balance be- 

 tween the population and the land. 



The solution proposed for bringing about this ad- 

 justment is to first identify and locate all of the so- 

 called submarginal land in this country and then to 

 retire a considerable acreage of it from arable farming 

 and put such retired farm lands into forest, grazing, 

 recreational, or some other desirable use. This is not 

 a new solution; it is rather a rationalization of an old 

 situation — farm abandonment. This latter phenome- 

 non, which is really nothing but forced farm retirement, 

 has already occurred in many of the areas under dis- 

 cussion. Any farm retirement plan would, therefore, 

 merely seek to make it selective, to speed up its opera- 

 tion, and to render it a form of social saving rather 

 than allowing it to remain a form of social waste — a 

 saving of both human and natural resources. 



■ Prepared by C. L Hendrickson of the Division of Land Economics, Bureau ot 

 Agricultural Economics, K. U. Parsons of the I^and Policy Section, Agricultural 

 .Adjustment .Administration, and O. T. Henner of the National Resources Board. 



At the very outset the question must be raised as to 

 what is submarginal land. No satisfactory single 

 answer can be set forth because of the numerous vari- 

 ables involved. The matter maj', however, be ap- 

 proached from the standpoint of soil. In the National 

 Resources Board Report of December 1, 1934 (pt. II, 

 report of the Land Planning Committee, p. 127), the 

 soils of the United States are classified into five grades 

 on the basis of physical productivity. The first three 

 grades comprise about 35 percent of the area of the 

 country and are essentially agricultural in their en- 

 tirety. Grade five, comprising 46 percent of the total 

 land area, is essentially nonarable and hence nonagri- 

 cultural. It is therefore grade four land wliich causes 

 most of the trouble. This class consists of more than 

 360,000,000 acres of land, and comprises nearly one- 

 fifth of the total area of the Nation. In a sense this 

 land may be regarded as marginal land because, while 

 it is physically possible to cultivate much of it, there 

 is usually no economic profit in doing so. However, 

 tliis type of land would seem to invite agricultural 

 occupance without giving warning of resulting low 

 income; only the more discriminating person is able to 

 withstand its lure. Indeed, it is probable that one- 

 tliird or more of all grade four land is now so utilized. 

 The result of such utilization has been the creation of 

 an extensive social and land problem, or what is often 

 termed the "submarginal land problem." Certainly 

 conditions do not warrant permitting more of this 

 grade of soil to be put into farms, and much of that 

 now in farms should be removed from such status. 



While the matter of soil fertility is perhaps the larg- 

 est factor in determining whether or not land is classi- 

 fied as submarginal, it is by no means the only factor. 

 In the arid and semiarid portions of the West, scattered 

 settlement, remoteness from markets, and rainfall 

 conditions are contributing factors. In the forest and 

 cut-over sections, scattered settlement, prohibitive 

 cost of land clearing, and sometimes wetness or stoniness 

 are important. In the areas of highland farming, 

 impossibility of mechanization of agriculture, disas- 

 trous erosion of steep lands, dispersed rural settle- 

 ment, presence of topographic barriers, and inaccessi- 

 bility to markets, complicate the issue. In the better 

 agricultural areas, submarginal land conditions are 

 the results usually of erosion, soil depletion, or local 



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