42 



Land Planning Report 



Conditions have changed since 1908, but Uving 

 standards are not much improved. In 1929 probably 

 40 to 50 percent of all farms showed a gross income of 

 less than $600. Cash returns are realized from the 

 sale of berries and cordwood. The growth of Atlantic 

 City and other resorts along tne coast has provided a 

 market for vegetables and poultry, and many of the 

 men find part-time employment off the farm. But the 

 total results are far from satisfactorj'. Much of the 

 land is not and cannot be occupied profitably. Under 

 present methods of use, potential forest is rapidly being 

 depleted by fire and by culling. An additional objec- 

 tion to the unrestricted use of this area arises from the 

 fact that the land is used over and over by realty com- 

 panies as "sucker bait" in inducing city families from 

 New York and Philadelpliia to acquire farm homes. 



Although possessed of a great deal of land of low 

 agricultural productivity, along with much that is 

 agriculturally desirable, the northeastern agricultural 

 region is one of the less critical regions as regards the 

 magnitude of its land prol)lems. In a long-settled 

 area of this sort, land use has had time to become 

 fairly well adjusted to land character and is reasonably 

 stable. Parts of the region are urban and industrial 

 rather than agricultural. Land use problems of im- 

 portance are therefore restricted mainly to the southern 

 part, in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and 

 Delaware. 



Central Agricultural Region 



The Central Agricultural Region is perhaps the 

 largest areal unit dealt with m this report. It extends 

 from western New York, Ohio, and the Kentucky 

 bluegrass district westward to and including much of 

 the Great Plains. From north to south it comprises 

 all of the land between the Great Lakes cut-over region 

 and the Appalachian-Ozark Highlands. 



In general, tlijs is a region of excellent agricultural 

 adjustment. Its heart is the American Corn Belt, but 

 its margins mclude large portions of several adjacent 

 agricultural provinces. The outstanding trait of tliis 

 region is its general lack of submarginal agricultiu-e. 

 Here and there over the region are areas, each 10,000 

 square miles or more in area, wherein no major prob- 

 lems in agricultural adjustment are in evidence. Over 

 other areas, even more extensive, the only existing 

 problems are those of erosion control or a change in 

 size of the farm unit. 



This region is responsible for much of the volume of 

 the agricultural production of the United States, and it 

 contains most of the larger bodies of productive agri- 

 cultural land. On the whole agriculture has been 

 marked by the provision of relatively good family 

 living and the support of fairly stable public services 

 and institutions. 



"Islands" uJPrublem Agriculture. — Scattered through 

 this extensive region, however, are irregular patches 

 and long strips of land in which agricultural conditions 

 are far from satisfactory. In some instances they are 

 as definitely submarginal and maladjusted as those of 

 the Ozark-Appalachian liill country. These "islands" 

 of poverty and imeconomic farming are rendered all 

 the more conspicuous because they are set amidst 

 a background of generally satisfactory social and 

 economic conditions. 



Such areas frequently are snudl, covering, perhaps, 5 

 to 20 square miles. Others include whole townships, 

 groups of townships, and indeed large portions of 

 counties. These submarginal "islands" in midwest- 

 ern agriculture have resulted locally from diverse 

 causes. 



In the bluegrass basins of Kentucky and Tennessee 

 such submarginal areas lie on patches of highly erosive 

 shale soil or glade (rocky) land. In Ohio they lie on 

 sand ridges or on poorly diained areas. In southern 

 Wisconsin they are confined to valleys containing sand 

 trains; in Michigan they consist of sterile sand plain 

 or rough, stony terminal moraine. The imposingly 

 steep bluffs of the Missouri River constitute a long, 

 narrow strip of hill coimtry in western Iowa, wherein 

 soils are erosive, droughty, and difficult to cultivate. 



Perhaps the most extensive occurrence of problem 

 agriculture in the midlands is in western Illinois, 

 northern Missouri, and southern and eastern Iowa. 

 This section consists of maturely dissected hill country 

 adjacent to the Mississippi and its principal tributaries. 

 Such areas exhibit a relief of from 50 to 200 feet; they 

 are usually quite rugged. This hill land was originally 

 forested and covered with gray-brown soil, in contiast 

 to the more fertile and lasting black soils of the 

 adjacent prairie land. 



Extent of Froblein Agriculture. — Compared with the 

 total number of farms in the central agricidtural region, 

 the number of problem farms appears very small. 

 They probably do not exceed 12,000 in the 18 States 

 or parts of States involved. This would include 

 1,402,000 acres of farm land, of which 570,000 acres are 

 crop land. The total value of land and buildings on 

 these farms is approximately $25,000,000, or $2,000 per 

 farm. 



The Case of Southeastern Iowa. — Prior to 1830 

 southern Iowa received considerable colonization from 

 Missouri and the southern Appalachian States. In- 

 variably these early unmigrants in Iowa chose the hill 

 lands along the rivers as loci for settlement. Here 

 shelter, a water supply, wild game, and fish were imme- 

 diately at hand. There was wood for houses, fences, 

 fuel, and outbuildings. Mast for hogs was plentiful, 

 and the soil, when cleared, was easily tilled, and adapted 

 for corn and vegetable production. Consequentlj', the 



