The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1902-01-02
More About
a Soil Survey.
Mr.. ]. r. Oliphant,
Prop, Free Press,
Poplarville, Miss.


subject of soil survey, l am IN
receipt of the following letter
from Hon. ]. S. Williams, Con-
yressman, dated House of Rep
resentatives, Washington, Dec.
18th, 1901, from which you will
observe that the maps which
Prof. Whitney, Chief Of the Blu
reau of Soils, desires are maps
showing the stream public
roads, plantation and farm
bound aries, and sites Of the
plantation residences, gin houses,
etc:
YOURS Of Dec. 10th at hand.
What Prof. Whitney meant by
reliable maps are maps that will
10 as basic laps for the soil
york Mississippi has never
lad any geological survey made
either by the Federal Govern
ment or by the State Govern
ment. The Department of Ag-
riculture did not want to be
forced to make basic maps. If
so, it would take it from two to
three times as long to
do the work proposed and
would require from two to
three times as much money.
The reason why the work has
begun IN Yazoo county was be-
cause Yazoo County had a good
County map showing the
streams, the public roads, the
plantation and farm boundaries,
and sites of the plantation resi-
dences, gin houses, etc. With a
guide of this sort soil force in
the field can cover from two to
three times as much space at
one-half or one-th1rd the expense,
as compared with a condition of
things where they have to run
the section lines out and identify
the lines OF demarcation between
soils with the Civil-engineerlng
lines. l found but two Coun-
ties in my District which had
these maps. These were Yazoo
and Holmes. In both cases the
maps were right old so that there
was some little difficulty because
of new roads, and newly opened
up sections and in some cases
changed roads, but still the fact
that the Typographical features
were fixed in relation to section
lines and that the great majority
of the public roads were accu-
rately outlined, was of immense
advantage to the sOil-mapping
party in the way of facilitating
its work. Every county ought
to have one of these maps show
ing the farm boundaries, farm
sites, gin houses public gins
especially-the course Of the
roads, where they cross, section
and quarter section lines, the
course of the streams, the course
of the high ridges, etc. In our
own case in Yazoo County it is
doubtful if the maps have cost
the County cent. It was made
at County expense and after
wards was sold at S. a copy and
bought by planters and others.
l have been trying for two or
three years, (longer than that,
in fact three or four years., to
get the geological survey of the
u. S. to do some work in Missis-
sippi, but there are such i'm
mense claims upon them from
the mineral section, especially,
IN the rapidly developing new
country in the west, where gold,
silver, lead, copper and every
thing else are awaiting develop
ment, that they have thus far
not acceeded to my request.
The best basic map for a soil
survey is a geological map but
they can get along with tolerable
facility and do good work with
a good Civil engineers map. If
you will think a minute you will
see the necessity of it. A soil
survey party comes to line of
demarcation between a heavy
clay and loan, or heavy loan
and a light sandy soil. If they
have a map in their hands they
know Just how far they have
gone across the last section line
before they come to this and can
just iot it down with a lead pen
Gil. If they have not, they must
have a party go in advance of
them fixing section lines for
them. Other illustrations will
arise in your own mind. You
could not doa better work than
to induce all the counties in rap
idly developing South Missis-