BLACK LOCUST RECLAIMS WASHED LANDS 



BY E. E. MILLER 



IN what is known as the upland districts of West 

 Tennessee and Northern Mississippi, there are hun- 

 dreds of thousands of acres of land that has once 

 been in cultivation but is now so gullied that it is thrown 

 out. The soil of this up- 

 land region is supposedly 

 a clay soil, but it contains 

 so large an admixture of 

 sand that it is easily carried 

 away by the heavy rains 

 common to this region. 

 Gullies will start on even a 

 slight slope and when they 

 start, unless something is 

 done to check them they 

 soon grow to an enormous 

 size. There are thousands 

 of them great red gulches, 

 some into which big build- 

 ings could be dropped out 

 of sight. Of course the 

 fields that are cut up by 

 such gullies can be tended, 

 if at all, only in little 

 patches. Usually they are 

 given up to be destroyed or 

 reclaimed by the agencies 

 of nature, and oftenest the 



agencies of destruction prevail. The problem of pre- 

 venting erosion and reclaiming the eroded lands in this 

 section is a serious one. The fate of whole farming 

 communities is involved in its solution. Some few years 

 ago, the State 

 of Tennessee 

 began experi- 

 ment i n g on 

 these gullied 

 lands by plant- 

 ing black lo- 

 custs. The work 

 has been car- 

 ried on long 

 enough to make 

 certain that the 

 planting of 

 locusts will re- 

 claim even the 

 worst wasted 

 areas and bring 

 them in a few 

 years to a stage 

 of pro fitable 

 product ion. 

 However, the 



252 



TYPICAL GULLIED AREA 



Reclamation will stop the gullies and so check the erosion of lands 

 still in cultivation. 



appropriation for this work has been so small as to limit 

 the work to a comparatively few demonstration plots. 

 The annual appropriation for all the work of the division 

 of forestry amounts to only $3,600. Of course, the 



reclamation of waste lands 

 is only one line of the for- 

 estry work. 



The state has been fur- 

 nishing the seedlings to 

 plant demonstration areas 

 in black locusts. The State 

 Forester has been giving 

 the work of planting and 

 the later care of the plant- 

 ed areas his personal atten- 

 tion. Several dozen such 

 demonstration areas are 

 now scattered over West 

 Tennessee and the demon- 

 stration has been so con- 

 vincing that farmers are 

 beginning to take up the 

 work for themselves. It is 

 not too much to say that the 

 planting of locusts offers 

 the one practical possibility 

 for the reclamation of tens 

 of thousands of acres now 

 valueless. The steepest banks of the gullies are blown 

 off by dynamite or dragged down with plows and scrap- 

 ers. Dams of logs and brush are placed across the 

 gullies to catch the sediment that is brought down by the 



rains. Above 

 these dams and 

 on the gully 

 banks, the lo- 

 cust sprouts are 

 set out. Usual- 

 ly they are 

 placed some 

 six or eight feet 

 apart each way. 

 They are plant- 

 ed in rows, as 

 far as practical, 

 so as to allow 

 cultivation for 

 the first year or 

 two. After that 

 they are abun- 

 dantly able to 

 take care of 

 thems elves, 

 with only a lit 



THE "BAD LANDS" OF WEST TENNESSEE 



Thousands of acres like this once good land is hopelessly gullied. Without some method of reclamation 

 established it must be lost forever to the State as agricultural land. 



