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Show duction in the power rate base might contribute to industrial stabilization cannot be predicted where other adverse factors of production costs are present. Yet, insofar as water power develop- ment may beneficially influence the economy of the New England people, its chief opportunity probably- lies in devising, and carrying through, region-wide plans for public hydroelectric de- velopment, for connection with the St. Lawrence system wfien installed, and for public control over its transmission to New England load centers. The Tennessee The Tennessee Valley is the region in which the Federal Government has come closest to un- dertaking a unified basin approach to developing and controlling water resources as part of a pro- gram designed to assist in the effective realization of a region's economic possibilities. Large funds have been devoted to the experiment. The Com- mission felt, therefore, that this valley should be included ajnong the 10 studies. For the pur- poses of th e review, published statements of the Tennessee Valley Authority have been supple- mented by other information supplied at the Commission's request by the TVA and other Federal agencies. The Tennessee Valley is the region in which water resouices have been most completely devel- oped and controlled. It is also the region in which land and mineral programs have been most carefirlly and fully articulated with river development, so that all natural resources are considered in relation to their total contribution to the continuing welfare of the citizens of the valley. Of the four regions included in this sam- ple it is the smallest, yet what has transpired there since 1 933 throws light on the basic ques- tion under examination. The watershed is an irregular crescent nearly a thousand miles long and only 150 miles wide at its broadest point. It drains parts of seven States. The upper river and its tributaries find their sources in the wooded hills and high moun- tains of south-west Virginia, western North Caro- lina, and east Tennessee. They drop rapidly down into narrow alluvial valleys thickly dotted with towns and farmsteads. There, in the main valley trough of east Tennessee, are the princi- pal urban concentrations, with the city of Knox- ville on the north, and Chattanooga at the south- ern end. Between them the valley floor is studded with small textile mill and agricultural towns. When the river breaks through the mountains below Chattanooga, it skirts the Piedmont as it swings west across the rich agricultural uplands of Alabama. As it turns north to cut the corner of northeast Mississippi into west Tennessee and western Kentucky, it winds through broad flat alluvial lowlands. Much of the region as a whole has been badly eroded because of high annual precipitation and the dominance of erosion-in- ducing crops planted for generations on steeply sloping land. When the Tennessee Valley Authority legisla- tion was enacted, about 3 million people lived in the valley. They were predominantly rural folk, living on small farms in relatively dense rural settlements. Only one-fourth of the population lived in towns in excess of 2,500, and over 50 per- cent were in farm families. Per capita income in the valley was less than half that of the average for the United States as a whole. Rural poverty was widely prevalent. Even though agriculture was the predominant pattern of life, the small size of farms, the inability to provide adequate machinery, fertilizers, and soil conservation meas- ures resulted in a deficiency of production of the primary food and feed crops required for its own population. Cotton and tobacco were the chief cash crops. This was the dominant social en- vironment in which the program of water con- servation and regional development of the TVA was launched. Regional development was part of the task spelled out in the TVA Act which stated that the Authority was to operate the nitrate facilities at Muscle Shoals "in the interest of the national defense and for agricultural and industrial de- velopment * * *." 9 But in addition the law ordered the Authority to carry on fertilizer experi- ments and demonstrations. It was to do this so ' Act of May 18, 1933, § 1, 48 Stat. 58, 16 U. S. G. 831. 32 |