Table 3. — Land area classified according to use, 1938 ] 



Land use 



Distribution of 

 total area 



Forest : 



Productive. ._ _ . . . 



Acres 

 18, 101, 700 

 70,900 

 227, 200 



Percent 

 58 1 



Nonproductive-. . _ ... _ 



2 



Great Smoky Mountains National Park- 



. 7 







Total forest _ 



18, 399, 800 



59 







Nonforest: 



Old cropland 



9, 860, 800 



267, 300 



1, 020, 500 



31.6 



New cropland-.. . _ 



.8 



Pasture-. . 



3.3 







Total agriculture.. 



11, 148, 600 



326, 800 



1, 318, 400 



35. 7 



Abandoned cropland 



1 1 



Other nonforest. . ... 



4.2 









12, 793, 800 



41 







All uses*. _ 



31, 193, 600 



100.0 



1 Data obtained by Forest Survey. 



1 According to area revisions published by the Bureau of the Census in April 

 1941, the State contains 31,450,880 acres. 



Agriculture 



In the tidewater much of the land is too wet for cultiva- 

 tion without expensive drainage and in the mountains the 

 rugged topography limits the cultivable acreage (tig. 9). 

 According to the Census of Agriculture crops were har- 

 vested from 22 acres on the average farm in 1939. Some 

 have high per-acre yields, but the small acreage usually 

 means a low income per farm operator. 



During the past 15 years the total amount of land used 

 for crops has not changed greatly, but there has been a 

 marked change in cropping practices. Between 1924 and 

 1939, the acreage of cotton was reduced more than one-half 

 and the consequent loss in cash farm income of £60,000,000 

 to 580,000,000 has not been entirely replaced by increased 

 production of other crops, despite an additional cash in- 

 come of $40,000,000 from nearly double the former acreage 

 in tobacco. Truck crops, potatoes, soybeans, and peanuts 

 have also increased in production but have brought lower 

 prices. A large part of the former cotton acreage is now 

 devoted to the production of grains and hay. As cattle 

 feed, these crops will raise the home standard of living and 

 provide considerable cash income, but the change from a 

 cotton economy to other forms of land use is still a major 

 problem in the piedmont and western Coastal Plain. 



Another feature of land use that bears upon timber pro- 

 duction is the cycle of land clearing and land abandonment 

 that has accompanied agricultural development. In 1938 

 the total acreage of abandoned cropland was greater than 

 the area of recently cleared cropland (table 3), but the differ- 

 ence was not great enough to indicate a definite trend in 

 either direction for the State as a whole. In the south- 

 eastern part of the Coastal Plain, newly cleared cropland 

 was almost twice the abandoned area, but in the mountains 

 the abandoned cropland was nearly five times as extensive 

 as the new cropland. In the piedmont, clearing and aban- 

 donment were nearly in balance, but a large part of the en- 

 tire area has already been cleared, abandoned, and natu- 



MOUNTAIN 



PIEDMONT 



COASTAL PLAIN 



AREA CROPPED IN EACH COUNTY (PERCENT) 





- 

 10 - 

 20 - 



9 







WA 



19 







mm, 



29 



Figure 9. Proportion of land used for crops by county, 1939. 



II 



