22 



Land Planning Report 



upon the ridges and upland arens rather thnn in tlie 

 narrow intervening valley. The narrow ridges afford 

 room for perhaps only one elongated farm. Wider 

 areas may accommodate many farms and even small 

 communities. 



For the most part the upland soils are poor and stony, 

 the summers provide relatively short growing seasons, 

 and access to markets and outside communities is poor. 

 To provide public services for farms on the smaller 

 plateau areas is very costly and usually wholly un- 

 economic. 



Cumherland-Ozark Hill Country. — A large part of the 

 Southern Highlands was once a plain or low plateau. 

 Stream erosion and dissection, liowever, has progressed 

 so far that most of it has been transformed mto an elab- 

 orately branching system of narrow, steep-sided valleys 

 separated by winding knife-edged ridges. The present 

 appearance is that of a rugged hill country, exhibiting 

 great relief in the so-called Boston and rumberland 

 "Moimtain" sections, but elsewhere, as in the Highland 

 Rim and Shawnee Hills, showing a low relief of only a 

 few score feet. 



Agriculture. — Agricultural and other economic and 

 social conditions vary from one part of the Southern 

 Highlands to another. The Cumberland hill country, 

 however, may be taken as fairly typical of the region as 

 a whole, and hence forms the basis of discussion in the 

 pages which follow. 



Valley land was early settled and brought under 

 cultivation. The natural mcrease of population, which 

 has not been counterbalanced by emigration, has 

 finally resulted m the utilization of practically all arable 

 land in the Cumberlands with the exception of some 

 of the southern portions. Unlike the rougher and less 

 desirable parts of the Northeastern Highlands, the 

 steeper parts of the Southern Highlands have not, in 

 general, experienced much migration from rural areas. 

 On the contrary, m most sections farm population has 

 increased, and in some, notably in eastern Kentuckv, 

 it has increased much beyond the capacity of the agri- 

 cultural land resources to support it. 



In many of the so-called submarginal localities, there- 

 fore, much sterile and very steep land has been cleared 

 and planted. Except along the larger streams, there 

 is rarely any level land in the valleys. Hence the 

 fields run steeply up the hOlsides. After several gener- 

 ations of primitive cultivation, much land has been 

 eroded beyond repair and abandoned. Many a barren 

 field, however, is still doggedly tilled as the only means 

 of family subsistence. The average crop land per farm 

 ranges from 16 to 40 acres, and in no case is it very 

 large. 



Social and Economic Conditions. ^F arm incomes are 

 exceptionally low. Within submarginal areas scat- 

 tered through five States in this region 40 to 00 percent 



of ail farmers received an income under $600 in 1929. 

 The average income ranged between $364 and $391. 

 Since from $125 to $245 of this was living contributed 

 by the farm, it may readily be seen that cash incomes 

 are indeed low. Many a home must get along with less 

 than $100 in cash per year. 



Poor living conditions must necessarily results from 

 such low incomes. Houses are often small, shake- 

 roofed log cabins surviving from earlier days, but more 

 often they arc simple board shacks, devoid of paint. 

 They usually possess but one story, a chimney of rough 

 stones and mortar, and a porch with unsightly shelves 

 or pegs for pails and kettles. In 1930, the average 

 value of 228 houses examined in Knott Coimty, Ky., 

 was only $340. In some instances the value of houses 

 ran as low as $20. 



Where the family is unusually large, a house may 

 have as many as 3 or 4 rooms, each containing 1 or 

 more double beds. Walls are commonly papered with 

 newspapers, windows are unscreened, and heat is 

 furnished by an open fireplace. Eoofs often ai-e leaky, 

 and most of the scanty furniture is home-made. Sani- 

 tary arrangements are crude or lacking altogether. 

 Wells are unprotected from contamination, spring 

 floods often sweeping the filth from a farmyard into 

 the wells farther down the valley. 



Diet consists largely of corn bread, bacon, and 

 sorghiun molasses, supplemented in summer with 

 vegetables either fresh or cooked in bacon fat. A 

 survey of 41 sample diets in 1930 found that the food 

 habits of these people generally resulted in serious 

 deficiencies in phosphorus, calcium, iron, proteins, 

 and vitamins. 



Typhoid fever and dj^sentery are common. Tuber- 

 culosis claims many victims, and hookworm is highly 

 prevalent in many districts. Serious epidemics of con- 

 tagious diseases are common. Doctors are few outside 

 the few larger toAvns of the region. Patients needing 

 medical care and hospital treatment are sometimes 

 carried on men's shoulders for many miles over rough 

 hill trails. The general level of physical efficiency is 

 low, the death rate is high, and old age comes early to 

 most men and women. 



Bad as are the conditions m these submarginal farm 

 areas, those in some of the coal-mining districts are still 

 worse. To work in the mines, many families left their 

 self-sufficing farms and settled in miners' shacks with- 

 out even garden space. In numerous instances the 

 mines have subsequently shut down and have left 

 hopelessly stranded considerable groups of these 

 people. 



Though one-room schools are numerous, many of the 

 submarginal farms are too remote from them for regular 

 attendance. Equipment is often jioor and teaching 

 inadequate. In spite of rapid improvement in recent 



