HEARINGS BEFORE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE. 73 
The Cuatrman. They are doing really clerical work, then? 
Mr. Wurrney. They are doing clerical work. They are doing 
efficient work, and they are doing it at a very much lower cost than if 
we got changed and had classified clerks. Then some of the laborers 
and the foremen are in the tobacco investigations. 
Mr. Burteson. How many years have you been conducting these 
tobacco investigations? 
Mr. Wurrnyey. I should say five or six years. 
The Cuartrman. Does the committee want to ask Professor Whitney 
anything further about the salaries of that Bureau? If not, we will 
go on to the lump sum. Now, Doctor, we notice that you ask for an 
increase of $33,000 over last year. Last year you had $170,000. 
You ask for $203,280. 
Mr. Wnuirtney. It is an increase of $36,000, Mr. Chairman. 
The Crarrman. Yes; that is, with the salary increase, too. 
Mr. Wuirnry. Yes, with the salary increase. . 
The Cuarirman. Now, if you will, tell the committee in your own 
way what the need of that is, and how you propose to expend it, what 
it is specifically for, in a general way, just as you did last year. 
Mr. Wurtney. The organization of the Bureau takes in the admin- 
istrative office, soil physics, soil chemistry, tobacco investigations, soil 
survey, soil management, alkali reclamation work, and demonstration 
experiments. The allotments for the work this year are: For admin- 
istration, $36,700; soil physics, $9,140; soil chemistry, $18,380; tobacco 
investigations, $26,300; soil survey, $96,360; soil management, $15,000; 
alkali reclamation, $9,020, and the demonstration experiments, $6,580. 
We have asked for an increase in the appropriations—total increase. 
including salaries and lump sum, of $36,000—in order that we could 
provide for the following increases: We estimate that we will increase 
the salaries of the men on the lump fund, mainly in the soil survey 
and the tobacco investigation, about $8,000. These men have been 
with us now for a number of years. It is the wish of the Department 
to keep those men in the soil survey for at least five years, so they can 
get their training and give us an equivalent amount of work. If we 
let them go after the first two or three years, we get practically no 
result from their labors. It takes us two years to train a man in soil 
survey. 
It ed us four or five years to train aman in tobacco. The young 
men we took on when we took this up five or six years ago are Just in 
a position now where they can be trusted to go out and take charge of 
tobacco experiments. The young men we have had in the soil survey 
for the last five years are just now in a position to go out from the 
Department. We have, as it were, a graduating class; men we took on 
five years ago—there are only four or five of them—are now as far 
advanced as we can carry them in the soil survey, but the experience 
they have acquired in the soil survey all over the country with all 
kinds of soils and all kinds of crops is making them of very great 
value to us in other lines of the Bureau’s work. It is also fitting them 
for instructors in the agricultural colleges, and 1 shall speak of the 
plan of the Secretary in regard to some of these men presently. 
But the young men who come to us for $720 or $1,000 a year, young 
graduates of agricultural colleges, are entirely unproductive for the 
first year, and in many cases for two years. They have to follow 
around as mere laborers, or drivers, imbibing their knowledge. The 
