TEE SOIL AS AN ECONOMIC FACTOR. 545 



which other soils, which are in themselves very good, are totally unsuit- 

 able. And this leads at once to the idea of the adaptation of special 

 crops to special soils. 



In a general way it has long been recognized that certain soils are 

 unusually well adapted to the production of particular crops, as the 

 celery soils of Kalamazoo, the wheat soils of the Red River valley, etc. 

 But it is not generally recognized that each particular individual soil 

 is best adapted to some particular crop or rotation of crops, and perhaps 

 the greatest economic sin of the farmers of this country has been the 

 almost general refusal to appreciate this cardinal, fundamental truth. 

 Much improvement in this direction is to be noted within the last few 

 years. It has come to be more and more recognized that at least some 

 soils are more profitable when confined to the production of particular 

 crops, as with the lettuce soils about Boston, the soils of the apple belt 

 through the middle Western States, the soils of the sugar-beet areas, the 

 sandy truck soils of the Atlantic seaboard, all coming into prominence 

 for the particular crops cited. 



Something more than merely empirical determinations on this sub- 

 ject can now be recorded ; and perhaps the most striking illustration is 

 a development of certain soils in the Connecticut Valley, which soils 

 were generally regarded as very poor and practically valueless, until it 

 was pointed out as the result of the soil survey of the Connecticut 

 Valley by the Bureau of Soils, U. S. Department of Agriculture, that 

 these very soils were markedly similar to those of Florida, on which the 

 best Sumatra seed tobaccos were grown. The climate of the Connecti- 

 cut Valley during the growing season is not very different from that 

 of Florida, and by the use of the tent-like arrangements for shading, to 

 which reference was made above, climatic conditions over the soils in 

 both Connecticut and Florida can be made very similar indeed. This 

 has actually been done, and there is now being grown in the Connecti- 

 cut Valley a fine grade of cigar wrapper, which apparently equals in 

 every respect the best product of Florida or of the Island of Sumatra 

 itself. This is but one of the most striking of several similar develop- 

 ments for particular types of soil to which attention might be directed, 

 where the possibilities have clearly been seen, before the introduction 

 of a crop or dependent industry. Many thousands of dollars have thus 

 been brought to the producers, and this, than which there could be no 

 greater, is a powerful economic argument for the liberal support of 

 scil studies on a broad, but systematic, basis. 



"With this idea of the adaptation of particular soils to par- 

 ticular crops, it becomes evident at once that the classification 

 of the agricultural soils is not only desirable, but a fundamental 

 necessity for the thorough scientific study of the soils of the country. 

 This necessity is now so well recognized that the national government 



VOL. LX. — 35. 



