490 ANNUAL EEPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



DETAILED SURVEYS OF EXPERIMENT STATION FARMS. 



It is desirable from every point of view that detailed survey maps 

 be made of the experiment-station farms, on a scale of approximately 

 1 square inch to the acre, in order that plot experiments reported 

 from Iho several stations -m be more accurately intcrcompared 

 and that the soil type may be used as the basis for all such plot-ex- 

 periment work. The attempt has been made in the past in the sur- 

 vey of counties in which the experiment stations are located to make 

 these large-scale maps, and a few of them have thus been secured, but 

 the pressure for the soil survey has been so great that it has not been 

 possible to do this work in any systematic way, and provision should 

 be made for it by a small specific appropriation, so that a force could 

 be detailed to this work and it could be uniformly prosecuted to a 

 conclusion. 



DETAILED SURVEYS OF FOREST RESERVES. 



Requests have been received from the Forest Service, which on 

 account of lack of funds it has been impossible to comply with, for 

 detailed surveys of forest reserves to aid particularly in the matter 

 of reforestation and in the classification of forest and agricultural 

 lands. 



STATE SOIL MAPS. 



The time has come in the progress of the soil survey when work 

 in some of the States, notably Alabama, South Carolina, and North 

 Carolina, is so far advanced that a force should be assigned to the 

 preparation of State soil maps, including the necessary provision for 

 field revision, the maps to be filled in and completed as the work 

 progresses, so that when the detailed soil surveys are finished the 

 State soil map will be ready for issue. Such a map will aid ma- 

 terially in the progress of the soil survey, as it will assemble on one 

 sheet the work to date and the filling in of the future work will be 

 greatly facilitated. It is desirable that a small fund be provided for 

 this work. 



DIVISION OF SOIL CHEMISTEY AND PHYSICS. 



In the development of the work of the Bureau of Soils the time 

 has come when a division should be organized to be Imown as the 

 Division of Soil Chemistry and Physics, which should considerably 

 extend the work that is now being done in the laboratories of the 

 bureau. In the chemical laboratory proper there should be a small 

 increase to provide adequately for the routine mineral and chemical 

 analyses made necessary by the increasing demands for this work 

 and a slight increase for the research investigations of the laboratory. 

 An appropriation should be made to revive and extend the work of 

 alkali investigations, which was suspended about four years ago for 

 lack of sufficient funds. The bureau has already demonstrated the 

 possibility of reclaiming alkali lands, but the methods necessarily 

 differ somewhat in detail according to the properties of the different 

 soil types, and such methods as have been most successful in washing 

 out the alkali have at the same time left the soil, especially with 

 certain types, in an unfavorable physical condition. In the interest 

 of the increasing value of these lands attention should be again 

 turned to this matter and the subject fully investigated and carried 

 beyond the point at which it was left when the work was suspended. 



