1 82 OUR FEDERAL LANDS 



ooo people should, from now on, include recapture 

 and restoration of lost soil fertility. It is estimated 

 that there are 1,000,000,000 acres of arable land in 

 the United States, 503,000,000 acres of which have 

 been converted into improved lands. There remain 

 452,000,000 acres of land never yet under the plow. 

 "Much of this vast uncultivated area consists 

 of neglected, exhausted or abandoned lands, or cut- 

 over forest lands capable of being brought into ag- 

 riculture. Millions of acres are located outside of 

 the arid and semi-arid domain of the West. A con- 

 siderable portion is situated at the doors of the great 

 cities of East and Central states. Within sight of 

 the city of Washington are thousands of acres of 

 neglected lands in the State of Virginia, worn out 

 and abandoned, yet susceptible of regeneration. In 

 North Carolina 22,000,000 of the state's 31,000,- 

 ooo acres are unimproved. Only 8,000,000 acres are 

 in farms. Out of 19,500,000 acres in South Caro- 

 lina but 5,000,000 acres in 1924 was crop land, 

 scarcely more than one-fourth. Tennessee cropped 

 less than 8,000,000 of its 26,000,000 acres. In the 

 New England states several million acres of land 

 have reverted to pasture. Of the 3,000,000 acres in 

 Connecticut 497,435 acres were harvested in 1924. 

 Vermont harvested 1,124,000 acres in 1924 with a 

 million acres lost to agriculture by non-use. New 

 Hampshire cropped in 1924 only 542,846 acres out 

 of 2,262,000 acres in farms. Here pasture lands 

 comprise over 1,000,000 acres. Maine, with an area 



