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Land Use 
3 
century ago, before agricultural development 
A of the Pacific Northwest began, approxi- 
mately 33 million acres, or 94 percent, of 
western Oregon and western Washington was for- 
ested. Nearly half the nonforested land was level 
or rolling prairies and meadowland in the lower 
valleys. The open land suitable for agriculture was 
all preempted shortly after the arrival of the first 
settlers. The building of transcontinental rail- 
roads—largely between 1880 and 1890—brought 
an influx of settlers from the East and Middle West 
Clearing of forest 
At 
the same time lumbering developed as an industry 
and immigrants from Europe. 
land for agriculture then started in earnest. 
and cut-over land became available for agricul- 
tural settlement. In all, about 3}4 to 4 million acres 
of forested land has been transformed into agricul- 
tural land, either by land clearing alone or by 
logging and subsequent clearing. 
The remaining forests have been altered consid- 
erably by man’s work. About 514 million acres has 
been logged and not put to other use, and a large 
part of this is not satisfactorily restocked. Several 
extremely large fires and numerous smaller fires 
directly traceable to human causes have devastated 
vast areas. Second-growth stands are growing on 
extensive areas of logged-off land and old burns. 
Agriculture 
Present Use of Land for Agriculture 
Agricultural land, as defined by the forest survey, 
consists of cultivated and pasture land, including 
stump pasture but excluding woodland or forest 
land in farm ownership. It totals approximately 
4,700,000 acres, about 70 percent of which is in 
70 
Ke 
western Oregon. It is estimated that more than 
half the farms in this region have some of their 
acreage in forest land. 
The most extensive body of agricultural land in 
this region is in the Willamette Valley, in north- 
western Oregon. This is a broad alluvial valley, 
interrupted occasionally by low rolling hills, about 
120 miles in length and 50 miles in width at its 
million acres of 
agricultural land. Its soils are chiefly recent allu- 
vial and old valley fill. The hill soils are residual, 
originating from both basaltic and sedimentary 
widest point, containing about 2 
material. 
The agricultural lands in the Umpqua River and 
Rogue River Valleys, in southwestern Oregon, the 
only other large bodies of farm land in western 
Oregon, total about half a million acres. The re- 
maining agricultural land in western Oregon oc- 
curs as small areas on flood plains and bottom lands 
of the larger streams. 
The most important agricultural areas in western 
Washington are the Cowlitz and Chehalis Valleys, 
the west half of Clark County, and the flood plains 
and alluvial valleys of the larger streams flowing 
into Puget Sound, such as the Nooksack, Skagit, 
Snohomish, Duwamish, and Puyallup Rivers. 
None of these compare in extent with the Willa- 
mette Valley, but they include some extremely 
productive land. 
The total area in farm ownership in the Douglas- 
fir region was nearly 7 million acres in 1934, accord- 
ing to the Bureau of the Census. Of this total 
approximately 2 million acres was classified as 
cropland, 3}, million acres as pasture land, more 
than three-fourths of a million acres as woodland 
not pastured, and nearly half a million acres as 
building sites, farmyards, roads, or wasteland. 
