The

Agricultural and Industrial Development

of

Western North Carolina

The Pulp Industry in Western North Carolina As An Aid to Farm Relief.

By W. J. Damtoft, Forester of The Champion Fibre Company

         Unwise utilization of land is generally recognized as one of the underlying causes of agricultural depression.

        In the early development of Western North Carolina men had to combat the forest to prepare for agriculture. The forest was an apparent enemy in that it occupied land that was needed for food crops.

       The habit of clearing land of trees in order to make room for food crops became confirmed with the result that, even up to the present day, the farmer has been constantly cutting away his forests to make "new ground'. The fertility of this so-called "new ground" has so impressed him that he has created it oftentimes in such situations where the steepness of the slopes, or other factor, have made impossible the retention of fertility beyond a very few years, and where the uncovering of the soil has resulted in its rapid erosion.

        Such lands soon become "lean lands" but, even as such, have been retained in cultivation many years. They have become what are known as "marginal" lands, i.e. land which do not yield return nearly commensurate with the effort and money expended upon them, In the aggregate they occupy a very considerable acreage. The tendency has been for the settlers to struggle along with them, with

       In 1928 the Special Committee on Agriculture of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States reported that: "Not only has American agriculture experienced overextension on lands suitable for crop production, but in the surplus production about which our farmers complain there is the production from marginal.......lands. These are lands where soil, climate, or topographic conditions, singly or in combination, make the production of crops a hazardous enterprise at the best. The lean acres add to the surplus".

      Any measure which provides for subsidizing or otherwise encouraging the marginal producers to stay in business would only aggravate the situation. The only hope for real and permanent relief is to eliminate a large acreage of the marginal lands from the production of food crops and to devote them to the growing of other commodities.

      This elimination of unprofitable farming is taking place automatically to some extent as a consequence of the realization by individual farmers of the folly of expending time and effort on an uneconomic enterprise. Many farms are abandoned every year. But a new crop of marginal farmers is also continually springing up. The extent of idle cutover land is increasing and its owners are attempting in many cases to unload it on new settlers. This area of idle and unprofitable land is a constant menace to stable agriculture.

       Any solution of the problem which merely provides for the abandonment of marginal land, but which does not provide for its

       Fortunately, in Western North Carolina, it is not necessary to leave such land in idleness. It once grew timber and is capable of doing so again. The climate of the region is ideally suited for comparatively rapid timber growth.

       The question may arise then, "why has the farmer not recognized this fact and placed such of his lands as are unsuited for food crops , in trees?" The answer is that trees have not been looked upon as an asset to the farm, - they have not given promise of providing yearly or even periodic monetary returns.

       There was, for generations, no market for trees except that created by lumbermen- and he sought only the larger specimens and more valuable species. He was not attracted by young growth, nor by small and crocked trees. He wanted virgin forest growth, trees of magnificent stature and rich in heartwood. And as a rule, he wanted extensive areas of such trees, such as would warrant heavy investment in sawmills and equipment for transportation. A comparatively small forest or farm woodlot had not appeal for him.

       But, with the coming of the chemical wood-pulp industry to eastern North Carolina, slightly more than an score of years ago, the farmers woodlot took on a new importance. Here was an industry far less fastidious in its demand for raw materials. It did not look askance at the small or even the crooked trees. It was looking for tree volume, not for tree form.

       This gave the farmer another conception of his trees. He

         Whereas previously the farmer had seen no hope of more than one monetary crop from a wood lot in a lifetime, now her could realize the possibility not only of periodic but even annual revenue. Continuous yearly returns could be obtained by judicious cutting, by taking from his woodlot each year certain trees whose removal only served to aid the growth of those remaining. There was not need of stripping an area clean at a single operation. No heavy investment forced such a procedure. No sawmill or other expensive equipment was needed. An axe, a wedge, and the ordinary farm truck constituted the only necessary tools.

       Hence the farmer came to view his forest in a different light; not as a mine, the recourse when once utilized is exhausted, but as a renewable crop, comparable to his food crops.

      Thus the chemical wood-pulp industry in Western North Carolina established a new connection between industry and agriculture through the medium of trees, a connection as intimate as between the textile industry and the growing of cotton on the farm; and it has created an hitherto unavailable source of revenue, not only of very considerable volume but of yearlong duration.