The Great Abandonment

[greybeard]

when humans leave

 

[Dave]

Not much different than here. Except our lack of moisture doesn't allow plants to take over. There is a book written by an old timer listing all the businesses here in our town in 1920. A partial list off the top of my head include 3 hotels, 4 bars, a two story general store, a couple other stores, a meat shop, a drug store, a stockyard, 2 blacksmiths, and 2 buildings for the section gangs on the railroad. Now we just have a post office where the counter is only open from 8 to 10 in the morning. In the old school (now the community center) there is a picture of the 1912 students. There must be at least 40 kids in the picture. Now there is a total of 9 kids ages from 1 to 12 in the community. Those in school get bussed 25-30 miles to go to school. At that point there was operating gold mines in the hills and homesteaders. All of them are long gone. One of the gold mines in Mormon Basin was supposed to have over 200 people. They had a movie theater, and tennis courts. Last year two grandkids and I went looking for that. All we found left was the bunk house for one of the mines. All that is left of Malhuer City is the cemetery.

 

[Mrcopier]

Sounds like a cool day trip

 

[Dave]

Sounds like a cool day trip

It would be a "cool" day trip today. It is 18 degrees here this morning and Mormon Basin is higher than here so probably in the low teens there. It is not a trip to take this time of the year. The fire went through there last summer. I haven't gone up there since. There is 3 different routes up there. 2 of them go through a lot of trees. I would think it is advisable to take a good chain saw and plenty of gas. None of the roads would be advisable to drive on with a car. And that was before the fire. Hard telling what the roads are like now.

 

[Silver]

In this area when people move out the land goes very quickly back to brush. Like was stated in the article, this isn't necessarily an ecosystem that is friendly to many of the fauna that currently thrive.

 

[greybeard]

In this area when people move out the land goes very quickly back to brush. Like was stated in the article, this isn't necessarily an ecosystem that is friendly to many of the fauna that currently thrive.

This, is the crux of the article. What they are finding too often, is the plants that are taking over aren't what was expected.

 

[farmerjan]

When fields get abandoned here, they go to autumn olive and multiflora rose bushes Both invasives,,, both brought here from elsewhere... they are both of Asian origination... and they thrive... and make the fields basically impenetrable in a short period of time...

 

[Ouachita]

When I forget to mow my yard, I get a good mix of possum grape and muscadine vines, sprinkled with a few dewberry and huckleberry.
I have to forget to mow twice in a row before the queen bitch thistle takes over.

 

[dave_shelby]

We get the multiflora rose and autumn olive too. I noticed more Bradford pears in the last few years. Thank globalism for that

 

[greybeard]

It will be greenbrier and chinese tallow around the Houston Tx metroplex, which takes in 5 counties. Chinese tallow would take over much of the gulf coast from south Tx to Florida, maybe up into Ga and S Carolina on the Atlantic too.

 

[Logan52]

During the 1930s my part of the country was near totally cleared. The hillsides were planted in corn and many of the ridges basically abandoned due to lack of fertility and erosion. Farmers grubbed out tobacco patches with a hoe from terrain that had resisted cultivation due to the way it laid.

Today the ridges are back in grass or row crops while the hillsides and out of the way places grow up in goldenrod and honeysuckle. The woods lost their dominant White Ash trees and now become impenetrable with multi-flora rose and bush honeysuckle.

The large majority of farmers are just gone, their old homestead having sprouted a new mansion for some retired couple or a family that commutes to Lexington to work. All the while nature reclaims the land with mostly invasive species and large numbers of turkey and deer. Coyotes have become the new wolf and even bears are returning. Bobcats and otters are back again but the small game of the 1950s have disappeared.

I sort of grieve the lost world of my youth when as boys we wandered wherever we wished, and the beauty of the old landscape.

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

Some abandoned ground here quickly starts growing tag alder and aspen trees. Other ground can sit fallow for years and just grow grass year after year, I suspect these fields were never cleared and were natural meadows once upon a time.

 

[Silver]

Some abandoned ground here quickly starts growing tag alder and aspen trees. Other ground can sit fallow for years and just grow grass year after year, I suspect these fields were never cleared and were natural meadows once upon a time.

We have natural meadows here too, and I've always wondered why. What makes this ground natural grassland as opposed to aspen ground? Most of my hay fields have aspen suckers come in 50 feet from the edge every year that are over a foot tall by the time the hay is cut. But other places (not many) even the fence row on the edge has no trees.

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

Yeah most of my hay ground has aspen suckers around the edges. Heck my backyard which gets mowed weekly has aspen suckers that come up a few inches every week and have for the last dozen years.

 

[Bob Kinford]

Not much different than here. Except our lack of moisture doesn't allow plants to take over. There is a book written by an old timer listing all the businesses here in our town in 1920. A partial list off the top of my head include 3 hotels, 4 bars, a two story general store, a couple other stores, a meat shop, a drug store, a stockyard, 2 blacksmiths, and 2 buildings for the section gangs on the railroad. Now we just have a post office where the counter is only open from 8 to 10 in the morning. In the old school (now the community center) there is a picture of the 1912 students. There must be at least 40 kids in the picture. Now there is a total of 9 kids ages from 1 to 12 in the community. Those in school get bussed 25-30 miles to go to school. At that point there was operating gold mines in the hills and homesteaders. All of them are long gone. One of the gold mines in Mormon Basin was supposed to have over 200 people. They had a movie theater, and tennis courts. Last year two grandkids and I went looking for that. All we found left was the bunk house for one of the mines. All that is left of Malhuer City is the cemetery

You would probably be amazed to see the difference in plant profiles there between now and 1900. Here in far west Texas the oldtimers in their 80's claim the only places there was any brush 70 years ago was in the draws. Now brush, especially creosote and mesquite are matched only by bare ground. In the last 20 years we have gone from 80 a cow to 180+ acres per cow

 

[daneg]

We have natural meadows here too, and I've always wondered why. What makes this ground natural grassland as opposed to aspen ground? Most of my hay fields have aspen suckers come in 50 feet from the edge every year that are over a foot tall by the time the hay is cut. But other places (not many) even the fence row on the edge has no trees.

Most likely difference in soil fungi and bacteria.

 

[Stonewall Joe]

It will be greenbrier and chinese tallow around the Houston Tx metroplex, which takes in 5 counties. Chinese tallow would take over much of the gulf coast from south Tx to Florida, maybe up into Ga and S Carolina on the Atlantic too.

I've got that at my place in Houston and in LA if you don't stay busy all the time the Tallo trees take over everything

 

[gman4691]

Here, historically there were pine savannahs - lots of pine trees with grasses covering most of the forest floors. After logging in 19th and 20th centuries, the increased sunlight reaching the ground coupled with invasive and prolific native plants resulted in lots of brush growing in the woods.

 

[GoWyo]

State and transition models help explain what we see with these sites https://naes.unr.edu/rangeland-ecology/state-transition-model.aspx

 

[Dave]

Here the big transition is in the plant community. It has been cause by fire suppression. Historically sagebrush was very rare or non existent. Juniper was limited crags and rocky slopes. The naturally caused fires would run across the grass lands quickly just burning of the above ground portion of the grass. The woody brush species would die where as the grass would rebound back up. Now there are areas with miles of either sagebrush or in some cases juniper. The big junipers thickets don't burn well because they choke out every thing under the trees. Which doesn't allow a hot enough fire to burn up into the trees.