108 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Soil surveys were carried on in fifty-nine different areas in twenty- 

 six different States, and as a result 22,762 square miles were covered in 

 detailed work and 79,108 square miles of reconnoissance surveys^ 

 mainly in the Great Plains region. A total area of 359,564 square 

 miles, or 230,120,960 acres, have been surveyed and mapped since 

 active field work was begun in 1899. General interest in the soil 

 survey work has rapidly increased. The interests served by and the 

 agricultural development resulting from these surveys are very large, 

 though not readily expressed in figures. 



The Survey has cooperated during the year with state organizations 

 in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West Virginia, North Caro- 

 lina, Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Washington. 

 State funds have been used to facilitate and expedite the soil survey 

 work in localities of especial interest to the local state authorities. 



With the final occupation of the arable lands of the country, which 

 has been practically accomplished, and coincident with the rapidly 

 increasing population, it is clear that the pioneer methods of agricul- 

 ture are inadequate for the increasing needs of our people. The time 

 has come when a more intensive and more stable system of agricul- 

 ture must prevail. The basis for this change is the intelligent use 

 and control of our soil resources. 



In the Eastern States adjacent to the larger markets the situation 

 is due to a too widespread adhesion to methods of the past. The 

 soils of the Eastern States, however, are fundamentally sound and 

 are as well suited now to intensive and intelhgent culture as they 

 were originally to pioneer and extensive use. There is abundant 

 evidence that with a thorough knowledge of the soils and the intelh- 

 gent application of modern intensive methods the yields per acre of 

 our staple crops can be increased many times. The soil surveys in 

 New York and the New England States, in Pennsylvania, Maryland, 

 and Virginia, representing the longest occupied soils of the country, 

 justify the confident assertion that these older soils await merely 

 more intensive methods in order to respond more bountifully than 

 ever before. The soil survey is the foundation for future work, out- 

 lining the different types of soils and describing their peculiarities 

 and their requirements, while laboratory investigations are showing 

 the many interdependent fimctions of soils and how they are suscep- 

 tible of control by human agencies. 



The soil surveys are showing the vast opportunities of specializa- 

 tion in the large number of soils of the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal 

 States. They are showing similar opportunities for speciahzation 

 in truck, fruit, and general farm crops on the many types of soils in 

 the Glacial Lake region of the North. They are showing the soil 

 opportunities in our limestone valleys and the great Central West for 

 the production of our great grain, forage, and fruit crops for the fall 



