XL REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE. 



their relation to practical agriculture; with the investigation of the 

 physical and chemical properties of soils and of the materials and meth- 

 ods involved in artificial fertilization and its influence upon the origi- 

 nal soils; with the classification and mapping of soils in agricultural 

 districts to show the distribution of the various soil types, with a view 

 to determining their adaptability to certain crops, and their manage- 

 ment and treatment; with the investigation of alkali problems and 

 their relations to irrigation and seepage waters, the causes of the rise 

 and accumulation of alkali, and the reclamation of injured or aban- 

 doned lands; with the investigation of tobacco soils and the methods 

 of cultivation and of curing, with especial reference to fermentation; 

 the introduction, through selection and breeding, of improved varieties 

 into the principal tobacco districts of the United States, and to secure 

 as far as may be possible a change in the methods of supplying tobacco 

 to foreign countries. 



The reorganization of this Division into a Bureau of Soils, with a 

 large increase of funds and a corresponding enlargement of the oppor- 

 tunities for work, went into effect on July 1, 1901; but $10,000 had 

 been made immediately available, and the gradual adoption of the plans 

 of reorganization occupied fully six months of the fiscal year for which 

 this report is intended. The reorganization was based upon the fol- 

 lowing facts: 



In my last report I called attention to the great demand for the soil 

 survey and mapping of soil areas throughout the country and the con- 

 sequent need of a much larger appropriation. At that time the Divi- 

 sion of Soils hadmade detailed maps of 3,386 square miles, or 2,160,000 

 acres, a part of which had been published, on a scale of 1 inch to the 

 mile. This work had covered portions of Maryland, Connecticut, Penn- 

 sylvania, Louisiana, Utah, California, and Arizona. The Maryland 

 work showed a variety of soils in southern Maryland and the Eastern 

 Shore adapted to a number of special lines of agriculture, including 

 truck farming, fruit growing, special types of tobacco, and general 

 farming, and gave a basis for the specializing of crops and agricultural 

 interests and improved methods of treating the soil, which give promise, 

 if carried out, of important developments in that section. The work 

 in Connecticut had pointed out the possibilities of growing the Suma- 

 tra tobacco and of building up a very profitable industry in the raising 

 of this fine type of wrapper leaf. The possibility of this has since 

 been shown in the production of a small crop of very desirable wrap- 

 per leaf last year and the growing during the present season of about 

 43 acres of Sumatra tobacco which promises very well, and which indi- 

 cates to the tobacco men that the $6,000,000 worth of tobacco which 

 we annually import can be as well produced in Florida and in the Con- 

 necticut Valley, with large profits to our own growers. 



