80 HEARINGS BEFORE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, 
Mr. Grarr. As to the county in which the survey shall be made? 
Mr. Wuitney. Yes, we rely largely on them for a selection of the 
location. seed : 
. Mr. Henry. I will vouch for the Bureau’s impartiality, for it took 
me three years to get a little extension of the soils in the Connecticut 
valley. I waited three years for it. 
Mr. Burtueson. I will be hopelessly lost if it takes me three years 
to get one in Lee County. 
The Cuarrman. At your present rate of progress—I do not know 
whether you can answer this question—how many years is it going to 
take you to do this work? 
Mr. Wurrney. Well, I made a statement two years ago before the 
committee in reply to a question of the same kind from Mr. Williams, 
who was then a member of the committee, that at the rate we were 
then-working if we had 15 te we would survey the cultivated lands 
of the United States in eighteen years. 
Mr. Bowre. Fifteen additional parties 
Mr. Wuitney. No; 15 parties altogether. That is, he wanted to 
know what the ultimate cost of this work would be, and I said, taking 
an area equal to the cultivated lands of the United States, if the work 
went on with 15 parties at the rate we were then going, the whole area 
would be covered in eighteen years at a cost not greater than the 
geological survey for a single year. 
The Cuarrman. With 20 parties, as you have now, it will take 25 
per cent less than that, will it not? 
Mr. Wurtney. Well, we have made quite a showing on the map 
since last year. 
Mr. Henry. A few weeks ago I was at the Bureau and a distin- 
guished gentleman from Alabama came in—not a member of this com- 
mittee—and he was urging that some soil investigation must be done 
in his district right away, and Professor Whitney excused himself and 
explained the urgent requests that he had had; but the gentleman went 
away very insistent, and about his Jast words were: ‘I shall hope in 
another year you will get tome.” That is the pressure he is sub- 
jected to. 
Mr. Haucen. How many counties can a party go over in a year 
and survey ? 
Mr. Wairney. We have the season divided into four parts. There 
are three months in the winter that the parties are in the South; then 
a spring assignment of three months and a fall assignment of three 
months in the Northern and Middle States. Then we take the parties 
back again through the South about the first of October, so that most 
of the parties survey about four areas. It varies a little. 
Mr. Brooks. I have noticed a red coloring in Colorado in the San 
Luis Valley tract. Does that represent the alkali land experimenting ‘ 
Mr. Wuitney. Yes. 
oe Brooks. That is the part that is contemplated in the future 
work? 
Mr. Wuitnery. Well, we have finished that. 
Mr. Brooks. You have finished that particular tract, I know. 
Mr. Wuiryer. We have not finished the whole area, but that is one 
of the areas we have been working on. 
Mr. Brooks. I want to say, partly for the benefit of the committee, 
that I do not know of anything the Government has done that has 
