Corn Grotvers' Association, 199 



THE MISSOURI SOIL SURVEY. 



(C. F. Marbut, in charge Missouri Soil Survey.) 



A soil survey is a fundamental investigation of the nature, 

 origin, distribution, relation, and utilization of the greatest natural 

 resource entrusted to the use and care of man by the Creator. It 

 is at once a scientific and economic organization. It should con- 

 cern itself with the soil from the point of view of pure science 

 as well as from the point of view of its practical value to man. 

 The two relations are inseparable. The study of the practical 

 utilization of the soil can be carried on with intelligence only 

 when it is thoroughly known as to its character, composition, dis- 

 tribution, location, and other relations. The latter characters are 

 the more fundamental and must be determined before any im- 

 portant prog'ress can be made in the investigations of the former. 

 The determination of the best method of soil management can 

 often be made by field study alone — by mere field observation of 

 the action or response of a soil to the many different kinds of 

 treatment it receives at the hands of farmers. Even where ex- 

 perimental methods are used for the purpose of controlling the 

 conditions, observational results can not safely be dispensed with. 

 Experiments, however, cannot be conducted, by the state at least, 

 on every tract of land. The determination of the best localities 

 for experiments in soil management is therefore wholly a ques- 

 tion of the knowledge of the soil in its physical, chemical, organic, 

 geologic and geographic relations. The purely practical side of 

 all soil survey work, therefore, may take the form of observational 

 determination of the soils, capacities and capabilities under ordi- 

 nary field conditions and experimental determination, both of 

 them being based on a knowledge of the nature of the soil itself. A 

 soil survey includes the fundamental work of determining the 

 nature of soils and their distribution and the practical work, 

 based on the latter, of determining the most permanently profit- 

 able method of soil management. 



Advance in civilization is invariably accompanied by a great 

 broadening of the range of man's requirements for physical com- 

 forts. Each and all of these must be supplied from the natural 

 resources of the earth so that the advance of civilization increases 

 greatly the demands made on the earth by man. It is probably 

 not far wrong to say that without the possibility of supplying 



