38 



Lavd Planning Report 



floor through a foothill zone to the forested highlands 

 above. On the lower portions of the foothill zone 

 grass is the characteristic cover, while hi the upper 

 reaches chaparral and timber predominate. 



Practically the entire foothill zone has passed into 

 private ownerslup and has experienced some degree of 

 agricidtiiral settlement. The lower portions are de- 

 voted to ranch pastoralism and are in process of ruina- 

 tion through overgrazing and erosion. The upper foot- 

 hills are ]>artly given over to grazing, and in part occu- 

 pied by scattered general farms. The farm popula- 

 tion was once greater than at present, but land aban- 

 donment has gone on apace and today the remaining 

 population is both sparse and haphazardly distributed. 

 Fires intermittently sweep across these areas, probably 

 originating in many instances from attempts to con- 

 vert chaparral into grazing land. The result has been 

 destruction of property, denudation of hillsides, and 

 appalling erosion. 



Isolation, resulting from dispersed settlement, has 

 caused a lapse m community life. Declining popida- 

 tion has caused school attendance to dwindle. Many 

 farms are unable to support a family withoiit supple- 

 mentary sources of income, a circumstance which has 

 evoked widespread fuiancial difRculties. Over large 

 areas total coimty income from taxes and other sources 

 is less than the cost of schools, roads, and public relief 

 for those families in distress. 



Most of the upper foothill zone should he retired 

 from private ownership, reforested, and devoted to such 

 use as will conserve the water supply of the Oreat 

 Central Valley. Portions of the lower foothills should 

 also be withdrawn from arable farming. The remain- 

 der should remain in grazing use and be left in private 

 hands, provided a system of intelligent range manage- 

 ment can be evolved. 



Toward the southern end of the Great Central X'allcy 

 conditions are progressively worse, and ranches are in 

 a precarious condition. Here the rainfall averages no 

 more than 5 or 6 inches per year in some localities. 

 Probably most of this land should revert to public 

 range. The upper chaparral zone has no potential 

 value for forest, but it does possess a critical importance 

 in waterflow regulation. 



In the southern Coast Ranges west of the San 

 Joaquin section of the Great Valley the situation 

 reaches its worst aspect. Tax delinquency has occurred 

 on a large scale, and farm abandonment has been al- 

 most wholesale. Erosion and the burning over of 

 scrub land have given the whole countryside the ap- 

 pearance of a man-made desert. 



Farmlands of the Sovthern. Foothills. — Farm settlement 

 is scattered thinly over the niunerous foothills and low 

 mountain areas lying between the Great Central 

 \'alley and the Mexican border. Farms are usually 



restricted to the small valleys between the ridges, and 

 are, therefore, isolated from one another. Only a 

 small amount of land is in cultivation, the intervening 

 areas being used for grazuig. Most of the farms are 

 too small to support a family, erosion is proceeding at 

 an alarming rate, and water supplies are precarious. 

 Some farm abandonment has occurred and the stand- 

 ard of living for those who remain is often very low. 

 Owing to dispersed settlement, the cost of govern- 

 mental services is high. 



Much of the southern foothills land has no value for 

 forest production and but little for grazing. It is, 

 however, badly needed as a watershed area for the 

 lowlands. Its recreational value also is very high, far 

 higher than its value for any conceivable form of 

 agricultural use. This is due primarily to the fact 

 that these rugged areas are not only attractive but 

 easily accessible to more than 3,000,000 people, or 

 52 percent of the population of California. The 

 value for recreation naust necessarily increase in the 

 future. 



The Columbia Basin 



The ngriculturally undesirable part of this area lies 

 wholly witliin the 10-inch rainfall line, and in many 

 localities the annual average precipitation is as low 

 as 5 or 6 inches. Soils are, for the most part, the light 

 gray or brown soils typical of arid regions, and carry 

 a natural vegetation of sagebrush. In the somewhat 

 better watered localities of the south and east these 

 give way to the chestnut-colored soils of the steppe 

 under a flora of scanty bunch grass. 



Settlement. — Practically all of this region was home- 

 steaded, and all land level enough to cultivate was 

 cleared of its sagebrush and put under the plow. Dry 

 farming on a very extensive scale offered the only 

 method of land iise over most of the area. In con- 

 trast to this, the valleys about the margin of the 

 Cohnubia Basin were irrigated and marie to produce 

 orchard fruits and alfalfa. 



Abandonment. — Emigration from this region has 

 been going on for 30 years. After a very few years of 

 occupance many settlers gave up and the abandonment 

 rate in all save the irrigated districts was very heavy. 

 This has continued until today. Over large areas 

 land abandonment is almost complete, and only a very 

 sparse settlement remains. In localities possessing 

 slightly better soil and more rainfall land relinquish- 

 ment has proceeded at a less rapid rate, but it has 

 accelerated with the recent period of short crops and 

 low prices. 



Economic Conditions. — Farm holdings are very 

 large, and, owing to the abandonment of intervening 

 areas, the wheat ranches are interspersed among range 

 lands. Wheat yields are almost universally below 10 



