IV. The Farm and Forest Trail
Description
Self-guided automobile tour of the agricultural and natural heritage of the region.

Significance
The South has traditionally been rural and agricultural, and the Deep River region displays the agrarian heritage of Piedmont North Carolina from the slave-based cotton plantation economy of southern Chatham and Lee counties to the small "subsistence" farms of Randolph and Guilford. The revolutionary transition from agriculture to industry took place along the Deep, where the early Quaker factories demonstrated the economic value of industrial work to skeptical southerners. Agriculture is still a major economic force in the region, with small farms currently making another transition from larger-scale agri-business to smaller specialty marketing. The creation of the North Carolina Zoological Park and Botanical Garden in the 1970s marked the beginning of the modern emphasis on environmental education, and the region today boasts numerous groups devoted to preserving endangered animal and plant populations. The most recent phenomenon has been a movement to protect valuable agricultural lands from urban sprawl development by creating agricultural preservation areas.

Assets
Farms, Farmer’s Markets, Dairies, Cheese Factories, Orchards, Pick-Your-Own operations, retail Nurseries, specialty gardens, public and private Botanical Gardens, Arboretums, State and National Forests, Outdoor Recreation and Environmental Education centers, Rare Animal and Livestock Breeders, Inns and specialty Restaurants

Documentation
A comprehensive list of the above operations must be compiled

Partners

• N.C. Zoo
• N.C. State
• N.C. Cooperative Extension
• 4-H
• Piedmont Land Conservancy, Inc.

Funding

• Cooperative Extension?