16 



Land Planning Report 



products, and one of $120 cash and $180 of home-grown 

 products, tends to be distributed. This is compared 

 with the distribution of living costs during reasonably 

 prosperous times of farmers in better fanning areas. 

 One hundred dollars is the minimum amount of cash 

 needed to provide the barest outlay of those food 

 necessities which cannot be produced on the farm. A 

 cash expenditure, therefore, of $60 or less means that 

 the people do not have adequate food. That many of 

 the families in these areas are imdernourished is e\'i- 

 dent. Dietary studies in two counties ha^ang consid- 

 erable areas of the type of land under consideration 

 show a decided lack of iron, calcium, phosphorus, pro- 

 tein, and vitamins in the diets of the people. An ade- 

 quate supply of the first 4 elements was found in 

 only 3 out of 41 families in the poorer county and in 

 7 out of 15 in the county wliich has less of the poorer 

 land. In neither of these two counties are all the farms 

 on land as poor as that which it is proposed to retire. 



Table 1. — Distribution of farm family living when the total annual 

 value of family living is $300, $.500, and $825, and with cash in- 

 comes of $1S0, $235, and $-500, respectively 



■ lEscluding housing] 



Total value 



Furnished.. 

 Purchased. 



Food 



Furnished 



Purchased 



Clothing 



Household operation 



Furnished 



Purchased 



Furnishings and equipment 



Transportation 



Personal care 



Medical care 



Formal education, recreation, gifts outside the fam- 

 ily, and community welfare 



Savings 



$825 

 325 

 500 



$450 

 (300) 

 (ISO) 

 100 

 85 

 (25) 

 (60) 

 3D 

 25 

 20 

 3D 



60 

 25 



The comparison of the living provided by these low 

 incomes with that provided by incomes of farmers at a 

 higher level shows that a large proportion of the low 

 incomes goes for the bare necessities of life and a very 

 small proportion goes to make Uving more worth wliile ; 

 food and clothing, 82 and 87 percent as compared to 

 67 percent, and for those items making for a higher 

 plane of li^^ng (the items listed under "Furnishings" to 

 "Savings"), 10 and 5 percent as compared to 2,3 per- 

 cent. Housing has not been included in the discus- 

 sion above. There is much more variation in the hous- 

 ing on this poor land than in the other items. In 

 areas where farming was prosperous at one time and 

 in individual instances where the farmer has moved 

 onto the land in possession of sufficient capital, the 

 houses may be fairly adequate. But on most of the 

 farms situated on poor land the housing is relatively no 

 better than the other aspects of living. Even the num- 

 ber of rooms available is often inadequate, and such 

 facilities as running water, telephones, and electricity, 

 are almost entii-ely lacking. 



Public Services and Institutions. — Schools, roads, 

 churches, and other community facUities. are also mea- 

 ger and of poor quality. The schools provide for little 

 else than teaching children to read and write, ^^^len 

 a comparative study is made of the value of school 

 property, school expenditures per pupil, teachers' sal- 

 aries, length of school session, average attendance, and 

 such other items indicating the quality of schooling, 

 these areas rank veiy low. A very large proportion of 

 the farms to be retired are located on unimproved dirt 

 roads. It is probable that of these farms less than one- 

 third are on improved roads of any kind. For the 

 country as a whole, over 60 percent of all farms are on 

 roads improved to some degree. Some of the counties, 

 in which considerable areas of this poor land are located, 

 have but one graveled road, that connecting the 

 county seat with a neighboring county seat. These 

 areas could not provide even the schools and roads 

 which they do possess if it were not for State and Fed- 

 eral aid for roads and State aid for schools. Church 

 facilities are even poorer, for here they are compelled 

 to depend to a greater extent upon their own resources. 

 In the southern mountain areas, many counties from 

 which it is proposed to retire land from arable farm- 

 ing, have a church membersliip of less than one-third 

 of their population as compared with nearly one-half 

 of the rural population of the country as a whole. The 

 community, because of the poor roads, inadequate 

 schools and churches, cannot contribute much to a 

 fuller life for these people. Spontaneous social group- 

 ings do not occur; clannislmess and extreme individ- 

 ualism are prevalent. 



It is not surprising that people who are living at the 

 economic margin even in prosperous times have to rely 

 upon reUef when their low income is curtailed. Infor- 

 mation regarding the relief burden in these poor areas 

 is not available, but data for counties having large 

 areas of submarginal land indicate that the relief bur- 

 den is much above the average for the United States. 

 In some of these counties over half the population was 

 receiving relief in May and June 1934. For those fam- 

 ilies on distinctly "problem land", it is probable that 

 from one-fifth to one-third are on relief. For the relief 

 load by counties, see the maps showing relief for Octo- 

 ber 1933 and May 1934. 



The conditions described below, however, are not 

 those wliich have resulted from the present depression, 

 from drought, or from other unusual causes. They 

 are conditions under which the farmers on such land 

 lived in more prosperous times, conditions better than 

 those likely to prevail in the future, and vastly better 

 than those at the present time. The inadequacy of 

 the results to be obtained from cultivating poor land 

 can only be realized when they be compared with the 

 results to be obtained from farming in other areas under 



