RECLAMATION WORK A VITAL FORESTRY PROBLEM 



75 



lands too steep for cultivation ; second, clearing of lands 

 too shallow for cultivation ; third, neglect of lands whose 

 productivity could have been maintained by proper man- 

 agement. In the hilly and mountainous sections of Ten- 

 nessee it is of- 

 ten easy to fol- 

 low the steps 

 by which waste 

 lands result. 

 For instance, 

 the lower 

 slopes having 

 been cleared 

 first gave way 

 to "breaks" or 

 small gullies 

 and at the same 

 lime became 

 somewhat 

 "worn" or de- 

 pleted of fer- 

 tility. It was 

 decided by the 

 owner to clear 

 a strip of the adjoining woodland above. After a few 

 years the older field was turned over to pasture or 

 waste. The new ground being steeper yielded more 



WASTE 

 This should have been maintained in crop production 



quickly to erosion and the next step was to clear more 

 new ground still higher up which often took in the entire 

 hilltop. It can be stated that much of the first and second 

 classes of waste exist because of the old idea that land is 



not worth any- 

 thing to the 

 owner unless 

 he can use it 

 meaning, un- 

 less he can cul- 

 tivate it or 

 graze it. The 

 trees are, there- 

 fore, from his 

 point of view, 

 m the way, and 

 thus many an 

 acre of timber- 

 ed and "tim- 

 ber" land has 

 been turned to 

 waste. 



The third 

 class of land 

 results from neglect. This is agricultural land and could 

 have been kept productive. Improper management, the 

 exhaustion of fertility, and neglect of incipient erosion 



LAND 



The grade of slope is low. 



Western Tennessee. 



CULTIVATED MOUNTAIN LAND IN EASTERN TENNESSEE 



This mountain land has been cleared and cultivated for a brief period and then turned into pasture. Though yet new ground, as is shown by 



the stumps, the soil is rapidly sloughing off. 



