SOILS. 



as xerophytic, mesophytic or hydrophytic, upon the arbitrary 

 assumption that moisture is the only governing factor ; wholly 

 ignoring such vitally important factors as the physical texture 

 of the soil, its depth, the nature of the substrata, and the 

 (oftentimes abundantly obvious) predominant chemical nature 

 of the land. And on the other hand, we find even public sur- 

 veys proceeding upon the basis of physical data alone, practic- 

 ally ignoring the botanical and chemical point of view, and 

 inferentially denying, or at least ignoring, their relevancy to 

 the practical problems of the farm. 1 



Early Soil Surveys of Kentucky, Arkansas and Mississippi. 

 Among the few who during the middle of the past century 

 maintained their belief in the possibility of practically useful 

 results from direct soil investigation, w r ere Drs. David Dale 

 Owen and Robert Peter, who prosecuted such work exten- 

 sively in connection with the geological and agricultural sur- 

 veys of Kentucky and Arkansas ; and the writer, who carried 

 out similar work in the states of Mississippi and Louisiana, 

 with results in many respects so definite that he has ever since 

 regarded this as a most fruitful study, and has later continued 

 it in California and the Pacific Northwest. This was done in 

 the face of almost uniform discouragement from agricultural 

 chemists until within the last two decades ; with occasional 

 severe criticisms of this work as a waste of labor and of public 

 funds. 



Investigation of Cultivated Soils. All this opposition was 

 largely due to the prejudices engendered by the futile attempts 

 to deduce practically useful results from the chemical analysis 

 of soils long cultivated, without first studying the less complex 

 phenomena of virgin soils; and these prejudices persisted 

 longest in the United States, even though in Europe the re- 

 action against the hasty rejection of chemical soil work had 

 begun some time before; as is evidenced by the methods em- 

 ployed at the Rothamsted Experimental Farm in England, the 

 Agricultural College of France, the Russian agronomic sur- 

 veys, and at several points in Germany. In none of these 

 cases, however, more than the purely chemical or physico- 

 chemical standpoint was assumed ; although in Russia at least, 



1 Bull. 22, Bureau of Soils, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture. 



