DEPARTMENT OF SOIL INVESTIGATIONS. 



Status of the Department. 



In accordance with the writer's understanding of the nature of the 

 work for the prosecution of which this department was created, it 

 has been equipped and its experiments planned with the purpose of 

 conducting investigations of the principles underlying those proper- 

 ties of the soil that affect its productiveness. While, in the course 

 of these investigations, some results will be obtained that will be 

 of immediate benefit to farmers and others who are engaged in 

 growing crops, the larger part of the returns will contribute to that 

 knowledge of the properties of soils and their relation to plant growth, 

 the possession of which is necessary for the intelligent conduct of the 

 more immediately practical experimentation. 



That the time has come when the continuing and increasing use 

 fulness of the experiment stations throughout the country is depend- 

 ent on work of this nature in certain lines of experimentation, is 

 evidenced by the passage by Congress of the Hatch Act, providing 

 expressly and exclusively for fundamental research. It is in the 

 spirit of this act that the work of this department is being prosecuted. 



Teaching Work. 



Training is given in this department only to graduate students who 

 are qualified to assist in the investigations, and who are willing to 

 give sufficient time to the work to follow with thoroughness some line 

 of experimentation. Registration is thus confined to students taking 

 their major subjects in this laboratory, and with one exception to 

 candidates for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. During the past 

 year five students have received training in this laboratory, being 

 graduates of the following colleges : 



Purdue University, University of Illinois, Agricultural College of 

 North Carolina. Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Iowa Agricultural 

 College. 



A limited number of well-qualified students are an aid to the work, 

 and take the place of men who, in the absence of student help, would 

 have to be well paid. Assistance of this kind, however, has the dis- 

 advantage of requiring considerable time and attention from the in- 



50 



