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FARM LAND ABANDONMENT-PROBLEM OR POLEMIC? Elizabeth M. Fravega* In a paper published in The Southeastern Geographer in 1964, John Fraser Hart reported on the "Abandonment of Farm Land in Kentucky," (1 ) and a larger study by Hart appeared in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers in September 1968 entitled "Loss and Abandonment of Cleared Farm Land in the Eastern United States." (2) The scope of these articles is such that broad generalizations are understandably necessary, and Hart has recognized the need to go into the field to better understand the subject. Since West Tennessee is a part of the eastern United States being scrutinized, an investigation was undertaken in the field to test in this area the application of certain of Hart's conclusions. First, that the most import single factor in land abandonment has been the poor quality ofthe land, and second that cities of less than a quarter of a million have had only a slight effect in diverting land from agriculture. This report considers farm land abandonment in the seventeen westernmost counties of Tennessee, (3) with special attention directed to Madison County for an in-depth examination of the role of urban expansion in diverting land from agriculture. While this area ofWest Tennessee lies on the coastal plain and is historically agricultural in character, a significant amount of the area's acreage has been removed from that classification by the United States agricultural census. (4) The difficulty of identifying idle land within the census inventory, effectively defined by James R. Anderson, (5) is further compounded by the problem of recognizing which land has been removed from that classification. While some of the land removed may have been idle, other parcels may have been in agricultural production. The best data available for the region as a whole are found in the Census of Agriculture, (6) although there is no breakdown of the types of farm acreage removed. Only by going into the field is it possible to approach a reasonably well-informed estimate of which parcels of land had been diverted from farm land use. It is helpful to recognize the distinction between farm acreage removed from the agricultural census by definition, and the perpetual shifting of land use within that census inventory. For instance, crop-adjustment programs and other government activities may affect the amount of idle cropland in any one census, but this idle land will not show up as lost acreage. On the other hand, the numerous factors which contribute to adjustments in land use within the agricultural land inventory are some of the same forces which function in the loss of total farm acreage. * Mrs. Fravega is an instructor of geography at Memphis State University, Memphis. The paper was accepted for publication in January 1970. 56Southeastern Geographer Generally speaking, farm acreage increased in West Tennessee from 1940 to 1950, possibly reflecting the demands of World War II (Fig. 1 ). The acceleration noticeable in some counties from 1945 to 1950 may be attributed in part to potential farm laborers returning from the armed forces. In the decade following, sharp declines in farm land were recorded in all counties except Crockett and Lake where land uses remained remarkably stable. In 1950 these seventeen western counties of Tennessee included over 5,400,000 acres of land, with approximately 4,581,000 acres, or 84 per cent, classified as farm land. By 1964 approximately 593,000 acres were removed from the farm land classification, a reduction of over 10 per cent. The net loss from 1940 to 1964 was more than a million acres. (7) LAND QUALITY. How may such a decline in acreages be explained? Hart has "come to the remarkably simple conclusion that the major explanation appears to be the quality of the land. The poorest farm land is being abandoned , whereas the best remains in production." (8) A test ofthis idea was implicit in the following investigations While West Tennessee has no class VIII land according to the Tennesee Soil and Water Conservation Needs Inventory, (9) it does have significant amounts of classes VI and VII. Classes I through IV were grouped together by the writer as good farm land for purposes...

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