30 



Land Planning Report 



poor land in this region, and to institute constructive 

 management on the forest hind, so as to use most efl'ec- 

 tively a productive and desirable forest region. 



General B'.conomic and Social Asi)ects. — In the past, 

 farm incomes have generally been eked out by part- 

 time work in the naval stores or logging industries. 

 In many localities this source of income is dwindling 

 rapidly or has disappeared completely, and with it has 

 gone the local market for farm products. 



A large proportion of the flatwood farms are very 

 small and of the self-sufficing type. On those farms 

 definitely atljudged submarginal, an average of not 

 more than 15 acres is devoted to crops, and the average 

 value of farm property is approximately^ ,$300. Cash 

 incomes, already small, are becoming even smaller as 

 the forest industries dwindle. Li\ang standards are 

 here comparable to the most isolated sections of 

 Appalachia. 



CJeneral health conditions are deplorable. Not only 

 are these a result of poor living conditions and a 

 restricted, unbalanced diet, but also of high humidity, 

 poor drainage, and the prevalence of malaria. 



The decline of the lumbering industry, the decrease 

 in cash incomes of many farmers, and the general tax 

 delinquency have greatly reduced tax receipts. It has, 

 consequently, become almost impossible to maintain 

 social institutions and public services in these southern 

 cut-over areas. Added to tliis, the situation is greatly 

 aggravated by dispersed settlement. Roads are poor, 

 therefore, and schools are operated for only short terms 

 by poorly trained and underpaid teachers. 



The Prospect. — Agriculture is in the main small-scale 

 "patch farming", operating under poor methods and 

 achieving an income too low to maintain even a low- 

 average living standard. Health conditions are poor. 

 A large jjrojjortion of the land needs drainage, but the 

 cost of this would be prohibitive. The region lacks a 

 staple crop. For miscellaneous fruits and winter vege- 

 tables there is no prospective demand in sight. Rural 

 settlement is so scatteretl that pid)lic services cannot be 

 supplied much longer by outside agencies. A large 

 percentage of the farmers themselves are on public 

 relief. The region is admirably sidted to the production 

 ol pine timber, and yet the visible supply of softwoods 

 in the United States is rapidly shrinking. This forest 

 country bordering the Atlantic and Gulf coasts is a 

 sparsely settled region , in which large-scale exploitation 

 of the timber resources has, except in the northeastern 

 part, taken place relatively recently. The forest is 

 composed in large measure of fast-growing species of 

 high utility, and the cost of marketing its products in 

 the timber-consuming centers is moderate. It is, there- 

 fore, desiiable as a region of forest-land utilization. 



Pacific Forest and Cut-Over Region 



Included in tliis region are the Pacific Coast Ranges 

 from San Francisco Bay northward to the Olympic 

 Mountains, the Sierra Nevadas of California, and the 

 Cascade Mountains of California, Oregon, and Wash- 

 ington. Farther inland are the Blue Mountains of 

 Oregon, the Okanogan Highlands of Washington, and 

 the Bitterroots, Coeur d'Alenes, and Clearwater Moun- 

 tains of Idaho. Included with these are a great number 

 of foothill areas, valleys, and partially enclosed low- 

 lands. In general these are lands of abundant winter 

 rain or snowfall, and originally supported a very heavy 

 cover of coniferous forest. 



Of the great forest regions of the Ignited States the 

 forested Pacific Northwest has been most recently 

 exploited. The expropriation of cut-over lands for 

 agricidtural settlement has probably been retarded by 

 the very great cost of clearing lantl of the large and 

 thickly set stumps characteristic of cut-over land in 

 this region. Nevertheless, some agricultural settlement 

 does exist. 



Settlement and Population. — Rural settlement in this 

 region consists of extremely scattered farms in the 

 higher mountain valleys, medium to sparse settlement 

 in the rugged foothills, and fairly dense concentration 

 in the lower valleys. Hxcept in the last-named situa- 

 tion, few if <iny of these farms are socially desirable or 

 economically profitable. It is believed desirable to 

 eliminate such scattered settlement and concentrate 

 agriculture in more compact communities on better 

 lands in more accessible locations. 



In California many of the inhabitants came in with 

 the advent of mining, and were for a time prosperous 

 because of local nuirkets which existed m the mming 

 camps. In Washington and Idaho, agriculture was 

 more often an auxiliary adjustment to logging. In 

 addition, this moimtaui- and hill-country habitat 

 early began to attract trappers, hunters, prospectors, 

 and those who preferred subsistence agriculture to the 

 competition of commercialized livijig. The western 

 foothills of the Cascades, for example, contain many 

 migrants from the Ozarks, the Cumberlands, and 

 other inferior agricultural areas, who chose this region 

 because it was somewhat similar to their native en- 

 vironment, and enaliled them to perpetuate the 

 philosophy of life and habits of living to which they 

 had become adjusted. 



Moinitain "Scratch Farms." — Soils in the mountain 

 area are usually poor and have, where cleared, entailed 

 great labor expenditure. Most of the farmhouses are 

 frame shacks and, less often, log cabins, devoid of 

 plumbing, running water, or electricity. The moun- 

 tain "scratch" farms consist of from 2 to 10 acres of 



