FIGURE 10.—A narrow-ridge farm in the Appalachian uplands

APPALACHIAN Land Uses Affected By Aftermath of War

The aftermath of the war has had its effect on agriculture in the Appalachians as it has elsewhere. The rugged topography of much of the Appalachian farm land is not suited to large farm machinery, particularly of the automotive type. Farmers on the rough and stony uplands of the eastern mountain States have found it well-nigh impossible to compete effectively in the markets for agricultural staples.

A rapid, almost revolutionary, readjustment of land utilization has been in progress recently in the Appalachians. The United States Department of Agriculture, in cooperation with the West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Stations, undertook in 1928 to study the nature of the necessary readjustment and to determine what could be done to facilitate it.

Field studies indicate that the necessary readjustment of population resources is taking place. With the higher wages farm laborers now require, it is uneconomical to farm the rougher portions of land so intensively as before. This means that in the central Appalachians rough land with a slope of 16 degrees or more (equivalent to a rise of 29 feet in 100) is going back to woodland.  Slopes less steep can be left in pasture advantageously (1) if farms are favorably situated with reference to roads and markets, (2) if the land is smooth enough to permit cutting brush with horse-driven mowers, and (3) if the farms have sufficient crop land to furnish concentrates for winter feeding. Brush-cutting by hand is not practicable so long as the present level of wages prevails.

In the central Appalachians it has been determined that farms on the very narrow ridges (fig. 10) and in the very narrow V-shaped valleys an not ordinarily be depended upon to yield a satisfactory living.  Broad-valley farms (fig. 11) and smooth uplands are adapted to machine farming and yield a living comparable with the living obtained from good farm lands elsewhere. A classification of 175 farms in the rougher farming section of the southern Appalachians shows that farm income is closely related to topography. (Table 1.)

FIGURE 11.—Broad-valley farms yield good incomes

“Income” as used here does not include the value of the food products contributed to the family living by the farms. The value of food products supplied by the farms ranged from $250 to $500, depending largely on the size of the farm family.

In the central Appalachians the studies indicate that the gently rolling upland, the broad-valley farms, and the broad-ridge farms all yield some balance of income over that required to support a reasonable standard of living. The narrow V-shaped valleys and the narrow-ridge farms yield less income and ordinarily do not attract progressive farmers. The ratio between these two types of farms and all the farms varies from county to county. In many of the rugged counties in the Appalachians 25 to 50 per cent of the farms are narrow-valley or narrow-ridge farms. The reforestation of these two types of farms will mean a considerable increase in woodland but a proportionate decrease in the number of farm homes. The central Appalachians are especially well adapted to the growing of superior hardwood timber.

By utilizing the narrow-ridge and narrow-valley farms for growing timber and the broad-valley bottom lands and smooth uplands for farm crops and pasture, the Appalachian land resources will yield larger farm incomes and will support higher standards of farm living.