152 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Conversely, we have a knowledge of soils that are peculiarly 

 adapted to certain crops and others which should be used for certain 

 crops when increasing density of population and market and trans- 

 portation facilities justify their most intensive use. 



Examples of such knowledge acquired through the soil survey 

 might be multiplied indefinitely. As a result of the soil survey of 

 the Connecticut Valley in 1899, possibilities of introducing the 

 Sumatra type of tobacco wrapper leaf were pointed out on certain 

 soils of that locality, and since then an industry has been estab- 

 lished where a very fine textured leaf is produced, under the most 

 intensive cultivation, which sells for as much as $2 a pound, as 

 against 20 to 30 cents a pound for the leaf previously grown, and the 

 industry has now become one of considerable magnitude and im- 

 portance. 



In the soil of the Nacogdoches area, Texas, the similarity of cer- 

 tain soils there with the soils of the Vuelta Abaje district of Cuba 

 was noticed, and as a result of field experiments put out by the 

 bureau it was found that the Cuban tobacco seed produced on cer- 

 tain types of soils the fine aroma of the leaf grown in Cuba. 



MALADAPTATION. 



The soil survey has shown that not over 5 per cent of the soils 

 adapted to winter and spring vegetables are now being devoted to 

 these valuable crops, the remaining 95 per cent being little used, as 

 they have little value for general farm crops and are not needed at 

 present for the crops for which they are adapted. 



In the development of this industry in the future there will be no 

 excuse for the mistakes that have been made in the past, as the rela- 

 tion of every type of truck soil to the variety of truck crop to which 

 it is best adapted is now well understood, and the location of these 

 soil types is known. 



Similarly, the vast opportunities for the safe development of fruit 

 and of dairy industries so far as they are dependent upon the soil 

 and climatic conditions and cultural treatment are now assured, if 

 one but takes advantage of the work that has been done by the 

 Department of Agriculture. 



The much-dreaded injury from alkali in the soils of the dry regions 

 of the West no longer need exist, as the Bureau of Soils has located 

 and accurately mapped the alkali soils, so far as they have been 

 encountered in the survey, has studied the type of alkali in each dis- 

 trict, and has shown that it can be controlled and eliminated from 

 serious consideration by practicable methods of soil management. 



Through laboratory research it has been found that not only do 

 soil types differ in their relation to crops but that they differ also in 



