478 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



COOPERATION. 



Active cooperation usually consists of an agreement whereby the 

 Bureau of Soils furnishes an expert soil man and the cooperating 

 organization an assistant, each organization paying the salary and ex- 

 penses of its employee. This cooperation in soil-survey work is par- 

 ticularly close in the following States : Alabama, Kansas, Mississippi, 

 Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, 

 Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, and there has been an in- 

 creasing dis])osition on the part of the various organizations to request 

 that the Bureau of Soils should enter into some form of active cooper- 

 ation with them in the prosecution of soil-survey work in the States of 

 Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Dakota, 

 Oregon, and Tennessee. Through these cooperative arrangements 

 the progress of the soil-survey work is accelerated and experts are fur- 

 nished by the Bureau of Soils, who train the State assistants. The 

 facilities of the bureau for the insprction and correlation of the work 

 are made available to local organizations and thus uniformity of 

 methods and results are secured. 



This cooperative soil-survey work has been very useful to the 

 bureau in bringing to our aid and assistance men having a thorough 

 knowledge of local conditions, and it has been of assistance to the 

 States in bringing to them the aid of men who have a wider and 

 more extensive knowledge of national conditions, or, in other words, 

 of soil conditions beyond the borders of the State. 



This cooperative work should be encouraged and more funds 

 should be made available to meet the increasing demands for its exten- 

 sion. At the same time it must not be forgotten that there are over 

 30 States that are not cooperating in which there is a very strong de- 

 mand from citizens and associations for knowledge regarding their 

 soil resource's, and from the Federal viewpoint it is just as important 

 to study the soil resources and map the soils in these States as it is in 

 States where cooperation can be arranged. Additional funds are 

 greatly needed for the extension of soil-survey work in the non- 

 cooperating States. 



SOIL RESOURCES OF THE COUNTRY. 



With an area of over 500,000 square miles surveyed and the wide 

 distribution of the individual jDrojects it has been possible during 

 the past year to prepare a bulletin of nearly 300 pages, showing the 

 soil resources and the use of soils east of the Great Plains, while at 

 the close of the present field season we will have completed a recon- 

 noissance survey of the eastern half of the Great Plains region, ex- 

 tending from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, with the exception of an 

 area in central Texas. It is possible from this work to make a fairly 

 accurate estimate of the entire soil resources of the eastern two-thirds 

 of the United States. This is being followed up by the preparation 

 of a series of publications giving detailed descriptions and setting 

 forth the use, limitations, and possibilities of the important soil 

 types of the country. 



THE SCOPE OF APPLICATION OF THE SOIL SURVEYS. 



The scientific classification of soils as given in the soil-survey 

 reports and the accompanying maps has a many-sided value to differ- 

 ent classes of people and business associations and forms a funda- 



