MOUNTAIN 



PIEDMONT 



COASTAL PLAIN 



AREA FORESTED IN EACH COUNTY (PERCENT) 



0-19 88%c§§1 60 - 79 



20- 39 Igg | 80- 100 

 40 - 59 



Figure 10. — Proportion of land 



rally restocked with timber at least once. The resulting 

 old-field pine stands are generally much inferior in quality 

 to forest timber. Many of the abandoned fields scattered 

 throughout the State will restock satisfactorily through 

 natural seeding, but the greater portion of the 327,000 idle 

 acres must be planted if the land is to be productive within 

 a reasonable time. It is not invariably true that abandoned 

 cropland should be converted to forest land, but timber 

 production is one way to use and at the same time rebuild 

 depleted soils. 



Approximately 3 percent of the land in the State is open 

 pasture. Nearly three-filths ot this land is located in the 

 mountains, notably in Ashe, Allegheny, Madison, Haywood, 

 and Watauga Counties. Grazing is also important in the 

 western piedmont; Iredell, Guilford, and Rockingham 

 Counties each contain over 20,000 acres of open pasture 

 land, according to the 1940 Census of Agriculture. Im- 

 proved pastures occupy less than 1 percent of the land 

 area of the Coastal Plain. The State-wide trend is toward 

 an increasing area of open pasture, for the Census of Agri- 

 culture indicates a 40-percent increase between 1924 and 

 1939. 



Forest-Land Use 



In North Carolina timber production is the predominant 

 form ot land use. Over 18 million acres, 58 percent ot the 

 total area, is now productive forest land and less than 

 71,000 acres has been classified by the Forest Survey as 

 nonproductive. In five counties over 80 percent of the 



in forest by counties, 1939. 



land is forested (fig. 10). Less than 300,000 acres is clear- 

 cut and not yet restocking. The relative extent of this and 

 other classes of timber-productive land is approximately 

 as follows: 



Percent 



Saw-timber stands 53 



Under-sawlog-size second growth 39 



Young reproduction 6 



Clear cut 2 



100 

 Commercial timber production is seldom hampered by 

 the other forms of torest-land use. Recreation is undoubt- 

 edly one of the most important of these. Hunting, fishing 

 (fig. 11), and camping are enjoyed by a large proportion 

 of the local people, and out-of-State visitors who come to 

 enjoy the recreational advantages make an important con- 

 tribution to the total income of the State. The Division 

 of State Advertising estimates that 3,000,000 motor tour- 

 ists spent about $100,000,000 in North Carolina in 1939, 

 or $28 for each inhabitant of the State. Many of these 

 came to visit the national forests, and the Federal and 

 State parks. In 1940 the recreation areas established by 

 the Forest Service on the Pisgah, Nantahala, and Croatan 

 National Forests were visited by about 432,000 people, 

 equivalent to 12 percent of the State population. 



Watershed protection is a valuable function of the 

 mountain forests and, to a smaller degree, those ot the 

 piedmont. Both the Nantahala and Pisgah National 

 Forests were established under the terms of the Weeks 

 Act of 1911, which authorized purchase ot forest land 



12 



