76 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



ANOTHER AREA OF WASTE LAND IN WESTERN TENNESSEE 



This was before any work was done upon it, in 1917. Brush dams were built, the banks plowed off, 

 and locust trees set out in the spring of 1918. 



have left much land in a waste condition and taken the 

 owner into the woods for more new ground. Regardless 

 of the comparative cost of this operation as against 

 maintaining the older fields, the tendency to clear more 

 new ground instead of protecting and building up the 

 existing cultivated sections has helped to swell the large 

 total of waste acreage in the state. Whether the damage 

 comes from fire, wrongful 

 clearing of steep slopes and 

 shallow soils, or from neglect, 

 the result is a needless drain 

 upon lands that should for the 

 present at least grow timber. It 

 is evident that so long as lands 

 are permitted to waste away, the 

 forest must pay the penalty. 

 Woodlands are the only source 

 from which a new acreage of 

 tilled land can be obtained, un- 

 less the waste is reclaimed. Re- 

 demption of waste lands will 

 necessarily put a heavy check 

 upon further clearing and should 

 at the same time promote soil 

 maintenance and soil building. 

 There is enough cleared land 

 in Tennessee for the pres- 

 ent, even more than required. 

 Broadly speaking the only jus- 

 tification for further clearing is 

 a real need for more agricultural 



acreage through an increase in 

 population, and this, only after 

 conscientious care has been taken 

 of the waste areas. 



Reclamation may be costly, but 

 the lack of it in the end is cost- 

 lier. On waste sections such as 

 prevail in Tennessee, reclamation 

 is guaranteed by proper effort. 

 It has passed the experimental 

 stage and is a success. Many of 

 these lands can be very shortly 

 turned into growing post timber, 

 a valuable product. Some can 

 be made into pasture, while oth- 

 ers can be redeemed easily for 

 cultivating crops. In fact a great 

 proportion of this last class can 

 be redeemed with as little or 

 less cost than that of establishing 

 the same acreage of new ground. 

 Foresters everywhere must 

 take hold of the waste land problem. Reclamation saves 

 woodlands from destruction just as surely as protection 

 against fire saves them. It will not only return much 

 abandoned territory back into forest growth directly, but 

 where the land is reclaimed for agricultural purposes it 

 gives to the farmer new fields and prevents his clearing 

 an equivalent additional area of woodland. 



A YEAR AFTER RECLAMATION 

 This is the same area of waste land photographed in July, 1918, after the locust trees nad been set out. 



