Show tr tree e e far farming mag 0 on n mined out land answer to coal industry problem stripped acreage baang turned into recreation centers by foresters forest operators have been called on by coal mine operators a ors to provide the answer to one of the most annoying problems which beset the coal industry what to do with mined out land tree farming is proving to be the answer the forest operators knew what it should be because to a lesser degree they had a somewhat related problem which new crops of trees have helped solve coal miners call the devastated dev areas of land surface left by strip mining spoils no word could be more fitting than spoil in the way the coal miners use it after the strippers have finished the earth surface looks to the public eye as if it had been plowed by blasts from hell the appearance of the stripped acreage to the public eye does not happen to be agriculturally true the fact is that the strip miners steam shovels have turned up virgin soil which otherwise could never have been touched by a plow nor have nourished a seed aerated it by the shovels action enriched the tumbled earth by mixing through it broken up limestone and provided new surface contours which hold run off on water and raise the water level tor for the entire surrounding area trees can turn these spoils into sections of recreational paradise but until the foresters have done their work the public remains blissfully ignorant of this the spoils can support vegetation but the only plants passersby see growing before the tree farmers go to work are jimson weed an and d an occasional volunteer brush the shoveled up earth Is full of rocks that would defeat or break the strongest pa plow 0 w and the ridges and depressions left by the shovels turnover would exhaust livestock pastured there if acreage could be put to grass trees are an answer to this situation strip alining strip mining is practiced in 21 states mine operators prefer to call it open cut mining by whatever name it is the oldest mining method aboriginal man doubtless first found black stone would burn when he happened to light a fire on an outcrop then with his rude tools he forced the surface earth back to S S A Q ap 0 15 IVA ja s 1 U ra N 1 q W giant shovels set aside the overburden and expose the coal because the ceilings ot of slate over these veins are so thin and crumbly that no mine timbering could support them land most of the ground which bears coal close enough to the surface to be strip mined is which government agricultural experts have been urging tor for years be taken from ordinary agriculture and put back into woodland in indiana its value before mining averaged only 20 an acre in the nine southern counties where there is open cut mining the college ot of agriculture ot of the university ot of illinois rates grazing land on a score ot of from 1 to 10 one is tops jops 10 is impossible before the strippers went to work the land they shoveled in that state was rated 5 63 barely par when they got through it was rated 7 49 good enough to grow trees the strippers shovels damaged surface fertility but did not destroy it stripping shovels do destroy earth top humus the deep fresh earth they bring up to replace it lacks nitrogen if humus and nitrogen can be returned the new soil because it is virgin will be better than it was before it has not been worked out by improper farming or bleached of its minerals by uncontrolled water it has been enriched by minerals mixed in from below formerly below average on the raters scale vie the land is now well above trees are regenerating this land and making parks out of waste in illinois alone only one of the 21 strip mining states acres of strip mined land in 12 counties have been planted with trees slice since 1930 and the rite rate of forestation is increasing so that trees T planting young pine trees on stripped acreage uncover more of the hot and lasting fuel thiel the only difference between him and modern strip miners Is that with steam shovels we can go deeper after the coal 60 feet down if necessary instead of bringing the coal to the surface this method ot of mining carries the surface down to the coal surface earth is plied piled up in steep banked hills with intervening valleys the valley at the end usually becomes in the course ot of nature a lake storing runoff run off water public does not understand the public falls alls to grasp the possibilities ties of such land it sees a big mud bordered pond surrounded by devastation john Q does not recall if he be ever heard the statement of the U S bureau of mines that strip mining Is a means of preventing waste of natural resources that can never be replaced john Q is no geologist no engineer he does not know that most of the strip mined coal veins are less than three feet thick so there would not be room tor for men to burrow through them it if they could go underground and that they cant go underground have already been planted this year favorite species for or the spoils re reto resters foresters are black locusts and the evergreen conifers black locust for three reasons i a it is a legume a tree bean b it Is a fairly fast growing bar hardwood d tree even in poor soil and sheds each autumn a large tan fall of big leaves c from the time that it has reached a diameter of tour four inches it has commercial value first as fence posts later as mine umbers timbers and ties the first of these reasons Is most important to the i spoil ret orester because the peculiar function of the legumes in the book of the soil chemists is that bean growing plants put nitrogen into the soil the critical chemical leck of spoiled earth humus humus is plant food decayed vegetation its chief source is fallen leaves the broad leaves of hardwood trees are its most prolific provider the spoil re forester is faced with the problem pio blem of getting as much humus on the surface of the tumbled up earth as possible as quickly as possible if it were not for the need of layering humus on the soil the reforest er might plant except for black locust no hardwood trees at all he would concentrate on the evergreens ever greens for the conifers members of the great pine family will grow on land too poor to support any other kind of trees out of the first trees planted by the open cut mining industry of illinois were black locusts and conifers the needlelike needle like leaves of these evergreens ever greens drop only every three or tour four years but it Is a continuous process their duff idoff does not makels much humus as broad hardwood leaves but it is good humus favorite co conifers rillers tor for strip spoil planting are those which are native to poor soils such hard scrapple evergreens ever greens as the scotch pine norway spruce and the red pine which struggles a gallant living out of the thin earth which veils the rocks of northeast canada and the bleached hillsides hill sides of abandoned farm new england and coal country pennsylvania such species are grateful tor the mineral food the strip miners shovels have brought up from underground they grow much more luxuriantly uri antly and rapidly on the spoils than they do on the uri tumbled land I 1 nearby and far better than they ever did at home A large proportion of the conifers included in the trees planted on indiana spoils during the afie are now 10 or 12 feet high covering the steep pitched banks of the lakes created by the shoveled up contours at least one observer Is reminded by this defor ested land of the irish hills of michigan and the forest bordered lakes of the adirondacks forests replaceable the forest products industries are ble able to give the open cut mine operators constructive aid and advice because they formerly faced a problem which while not so grave was similar early loggers looked on forests as it if they were mines both timber and coal are natural resources the prime difference Is that once coal has been mined it is gone while forests are replaceable long ago loggers were faced by a triple economic problem first land had to be cleared before it could be farmed woodcutters were the first pioneers pr proud oud of their accomplishment when their axes let light into the swamp the life giving sunlight without which corn com could not grow second the country was in urgent need of harvested wood tor for construction lumber tor for fencing and for fuel in years it took seven trillion two hundred billion board feet of lumber to build this country and third the pioneers were faced with seemingly endless mature forests es ts only swift harvesting of some of them could save them from the deterioration of old age As a matter of tact fact this Is still true of thousands of thousands of square miles of forest land in america harvesting virgin ponderosa pine has in some sections resolved itself into a race against the beetle plague of these aged trees harvesting some stands of virgin douglas fir Is a race against internal tree decay if we are to continue to have forests in those sections many old trees need to be removed so that a new young tree crop can grow enough farm land was finally cleared in some sections of the country too much some harvested forest land proved unfit to farm trees were the natural and only us useful crop these acres would grow new england and southern loggers found themselves harvesting second and even third growth trees the evidence was inescapable these trees were volunteer crops trees can be grown over and over on the same land where seed trees had bad been left in cut over areas natural re planting with fire protection provided adequate new crops but in some areas fire erosion or other causes have destroyed natural seed sources young growth and the surface fertility of the soil this was particularly true ot of abandoned fires had swept through the waste litter and dead snags left behind when the merchantable timber was taken out this had destroyed the humus |