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Show of channels. Ten years later, Congress authorized a land purchase program in headwater areas to produce favorable conditions of water flow, and a cooperative Federal-State forest fire control pro- gram. Nearly four-fifths of the forest land is privately owned, about 60 percent of which is woodland on farms. Public forests, mostly Federal, occupy over 3.4 million acres. The area in each class of owner- ship reported by the TVA in 1949 is as follows: Thousand acres Private forest land_________________________11,023 Federal forest land_________________________ 3,128 National forests____________________________ 2, 137 National parks------------------------------------------- 459 Tennessee Valley Authority__________________ 323 Department of the Army______________:_______ 71 Fish and Wildlife Service____________________ 44 Atomic Energy Commission__________________ 31 Indian lands______________________________ 25 War Assets Administration___________________ 18 Bureau of Land Management_________________ 10 Other____________________________________ 10 State: *___________________________________ 250 State forests___________________________ 98 Wildlife areas_________________________ 61 State parks_________:__________________ 37 Defense installations____________________ 24 School lands--------------------------------------- 14 Other _______________________________ 16 County *__________________________________ 6 Municipal1---------------------------------------------- 52 1 Of the State lands 226,000 acres were in Tennessee, as were 5,240 acres of county lands; 39,920 acres of municipal land were in North Carolina. The past half century has seen great strides in forestry. The Federal Government has acquired 2.5 million acres of land, given it intensive protec- tion against fire, reforested thousands of acres of denuded land, and changed logging practices.12 The protection and management of these lands have exerted a profound influence on the intermingled lands, an influence that is to be seen in a marked decrease in erosion and sedimentation, the reduc- tion of flash floods, and heavier stands of timber throughout the area. Although forest fire control made some progress in the basin States after 1911, it did not really ad- vance until after passage of the Clarke-McNary M See description of Nantahala National Forest in vol- ume 1, appendix 4 of this report. Act13 which greatly stepped up the cooperative Federal-State forest fire control efforts. This ac- tivity was further augmented with the organization of the Forestry Division of the TVA in 1935. To- day, the forests in the valley sections of Virginia, North Carolina, and Alabama are protected against fire, and the protection is increasing in Tennessee. About 70 percent of all forest land is now given protection, the intensity of which has markedly in- creased. Although the number of forest fires start- ing is about the same today as 20 years ago, the size of the average fire has been more than cut in half and the damage done reduced even more. The TVA has contributed technical and financial assist- ance to the several State forestry agencies in carry- ing out this program. One of the popular forestry programs is that of tree planting. Under the Clarke-McNary Act, the Federal Government and the States each con- tributed one-quarter the cost of young trees, while the farmer paid the other half. The TVA, how- ever, has now undertaken to provide young trees free to all landholders who guarantee their proper planting. In the spring of 1950, more than 6,000 people planted over 17 million trees on 16,000 acres. To date the TVA has distributed about 157 million trees which have been planted on 127,106 acres of non-Federal lands, and has itself planted 49 million trees on 41,146 acres of its own lands. A complete reforestation program for the valley will take about 1.8 billion seedlings, or 90 million trees a year for 20 years. Realizing that many owners of hill farms needed some supplemental income or a wider variety in their diet, the TVA early began a study of improved forest tree fruits that could be grown with a mini- mum of attention on poor lands. This project has been highly successful in that several promising varieties of trees have been developed. This in- cludes black walnuts, Chinese chestnuts, filberts, oriental persimmon, and pecans. Nine demonstration foresters are employed by the Forest Service in cooperation with the States. These assist the private woodland owners in man- agement problems such as the kind and character of trees to be harvested, the manner of harvesting, the need for reforestation, and the like. TVA foresters have worked with county extension service in carrying out demonstrations on farm woods. Of more than 5,000 such demonstrations in the valley, over a fourth have incorporated woodland manage- 18 Act of June 7, 1924, 43 Stat. 653, 16 U. S. C. 564. 757 |
