BUREAU OF SOILS. 499 



high prices obtained by the farmer for his products, have resulted in 

 an era of great prosperity, and this with the increase in population 

 has caused high prices for farm lands, especially in the central-western 

 States. The demand for land, especially for cheaper land, has been 

 great, and the eyes of many farmers have been turned westward and 

 immigration has forced its way into the semia'rid region heretofore 

 used mainly for grazing. In order to meet the demand, great bodies 

 of western lands have been thrown on the markets. Large ranches 

 have been cut up into small farms and sold to farmers, and practically 

 all of the cultivable government land has been homesteaded. Many 

 indivi(kiaLs, companies, and corporations are exploiting and adver- 

 tising the western lands, and the influx of settlers into the western 

 plains has been enormous within the past few 3'ears. Many incpiiries 

 are received by the Bureau of Soils from people who are contemplating 

 moving into the western country for the purpose of farming and from 

 people already living in the West who are desirous of obtaining 

 mformation concerning soil problems. 



In order to gather information along soil lines which would be 

 available for the people of the West and for the people who wish to 

 move to the AYest, the Bureau of Soils in 1898 inaugurated extensive 

 surveys in the Great Plains. The importance of gathering the infor- 

 mation as rapidly as possible was recognized by the Bureau and it 

 was decided to make rapid surve3's of large areas, mapping the soils 

 on small-scale maps. Thus the beginning of the fiscal year 1908 

 witnessed the beginning of reconnoissance soil surveys. 



The purpose of the reconnoissance soil survey is to map the soils 

 in a g(^neral wa}', without attempting to show small areas or trace 

 out soil boundaries accurately, as is done in detailed soil survey 

 work. In some cases where small areas of different soil types are 

 found closely associated and where separating them on a map would 

 recpiire considerable time, these types are mapped in one color, but 

 each described separately in the report. The surface features are 

 also shown in a general wa}'. wSoil and general agricultural informa- 

 tion is gathered and the report of the area is written up in much the 

 same way as the report for a detailed survey. 



In the reconnoissance survey a large area may be covered in a 

 single season. At the close of the fiscal year ending June 30, 1910, 

 approximately 1,132,580 square miles had been covered in the Great 

 Plains region and southern Texas. 



Those surveys covered the western half of North and South Dakota 

 and three large areas in Texas; one in the extreme northwestern part 

 of the State covering the Panhandle section and two areas in the 

 extreme southern part of the State bordering the Gulf. A great 

 deal of information relating to soils, crops, and agriculture in these 

 s(>ctions has been gathered in this work, furnishing material for 

 unbiased reports on the several areas. 



In North Dakota some 29 types or conditions of soil were shown. 

 As a rule, all the types that are tillable are well adapted to tlie pro- 

 duction of wheat, oats, flax, barley, and potatoes. These soils are 

 all (piitc productive and suited to dry farming, ])rovi(led the rainfall 

 for t he year does not fall greatly below the normal. The country has 

 been settling rapidly dtu-ing the past few years with an industrious 

 class of farmers, many of whom are emigrants from the Scandinavian 

 countries, and from Russia, Germany, and Bohemia. In some 



