PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS.— SECTION II. 35 



conditions ol soil and climate similar to those of Western ^Maryland were 

 found. .... 



" The soil survey is of considerable value also in furnishing instruction as to 

 the cultivation of different kinds of soils in various parts of the country. 

 That sandy soils and heavy clay soils require widely different methods of 

 cultivation has long been known, but the great importance of this has been 

 most clearly brought out by the comparative methods of the soil survey. . . . 



" As an illustration of the monetary value of the Bureau's work in establish- 

 ing the relation between soils and crops, it may be stated that the soils of 

 the Connecticut valley, which the Bureau declared were adapted to the 

 growing of a superior wrapper tobacco, increased in value more than three 



fold Other instances of the increase of land values through the 



discovery of the adaptation of certain soils to special crops may be cited. 

 The trucking soils of the Atlantic seaboard have increased of late years from 

 a nominal value of five dollars an acre to 200 dollars or more an acre. The 

 rice lands of Louisiana have increased in value from five dollars to fifty 

 dollars an acre. The Florida soils, adapted to the growing of pineapples, 

 have risen in value from practically nothing to over 500 dollars an acre. 



" Yet another advantage of the work of the soil survey is the accurate 

 basis which it furnishes for further experimentation. The mapping of the 

 different soils in the several States serves as a true guide for further experi- 

 mental work, whether with methods of cultivation, or of crop rotation, or 

 with different manures and fertilisers 



" In several instances the Bureau of Soils has rendered valuable service 

 to would-be settlers in undeveloped sections of the country. The incorpora- 

 tion of companies to open up and to advertise large tracts of land sometimes 

 leads to exploitation of regions unsuited to agriculture. The agents of the 

 Bureau have been called on from time to time to investigate these lands, 

 and in some cases have discovered that they were of little or no value to 

 intended settlers, either because of the presence of alkali or because they 



were not adapted to the only crop suited to the area and 



the publication of these facts has saved many home-seekers from investing 

 their all in ventures which were bound to prove unprofitable."* 



I remarked, at an earlier stage, on the selfishness that shines 

 through the objections to scientific investigation because of its 

 benefits becoming visible only in the third or fourth generation ; 

 here we have recorded an almost incredible array of the most 

 fruitful results of a series of investigations begun as recently as 

 ten years before that record was penned. 



It may be asked how one should set about work of this class. 

 Well, several phases of the survey may be carried on concurrently, 

 but if any portion should precede the rest it should, I think, be 

 the collection of data respecting both the distribution of the 

 country's indigenous flora and the success, or otherwise, of culti- 

 vated crops where such culture is practised. The bushes and 

 herbs which grow wild on certain soils constitute so many natural 

 indications regarding the condition of the soil, and hence of its 

 suitability for this or that form of culture. Thus the natural 

 vegetation of a soil may denote a high degree of brackness or 

 alkalinity, and that tells us at once that in its present state that 

 soil cannot bear — let us say — a crop of wheat. If in another 

 locality that same natural vegetation is found to be dwarfed and 

 stunted, we may draw the conclusion that there the alkaline salts, 

 although present, are less abundant than in the former case, and 

 that, consequently, at least some farm crops may be got to grow 

 there. Then, again, there are bushes of the type of the rhenoster 



* U.S. Dept. of Agr. Bureau of Soils, Circ. No. 13, revised, dated April 8, 

 1905. 



