Excerpt from Forest Planting on Strip-Mined Land in Kansas, Missouri, and OklahomaForestation is one way to reclaim land that has been strip mined for coal in Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma (frontispiece). Although some of this land supports stands of trees, it is apparent that natural reproduction Will not always produce satisfactory forest stands. If forest crops are to be grown on strip-mined land, most areas Will have to be planted. In 1947 the Central States Forest Experiment Station, in cooperation With local strip-mining companies, began a series of studies to find out which forest tree species are suitable for planting on strip-mined land in the three states.The amount of land that has been mined in this region is small in relation to the total land area. However, the mining is concentrated in certain regions where it has created new land-use problems. Conditions for open-cut or strip-mining of coal are highly favorable in parts of Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma. In strip-mining, all of the strata overlying shallow deposits of coal are removed exposing the coal in an open pit. This method of mining accounts for most of the coal produced in the three states.According to a survey made in 1946, approximately acres had been strip - mined to that date in the 3-state area (fig. Since then several thousand more acres of land have been mined by this method. When the survey was made, only 4 per cent of the strip-mined land in Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma could not be reforested because of the nature of the strip-banks. The surface of the banks on these unplantable areas contained much toxic acid material. The survey showed that approximately 46 percent of all strip-mined land in the area was barren of any vegetation. The remaining land supported some form of herbaceous or woody vegetation (table 1, p.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.