Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1907-05-16
A Study Of Dirt and Dust gathered
from the Entire United States.

washington, May I'm the cab
inets of tie bureau of soils, part o.
Uncle Sans department of agricul-
ture, is to be seen the most extensive
collection of dirt-unless possibly in
the streets of New York-to be found
in North America The subject to the
visitor looks a very dry one. In
sense 1t is so, for if the tops should
suddenly be removed from the almost
innumerable little glass bottles in
which specimens of soil and subsoll
are preserved and a stirring breeze
, should be set whirring in the room,
miniature example of the combined
dust of the United States could be
raised in way to make one who has
5ourneyed in summer time from
Maine to southern California appreci-
ate that it is possible to get the effect
of travelling intensively without stir
ring foot.
Most people, of course, are inter
ested in dirt and dust only to avoid
them, but the young scientists in
governmental employ are today Great
ing a new science through study OF
i the little lunches of earth that are
/, pulled up by "soil augers" from every
district of our dominion A typical
area is selected, the field workers go
over 1t. driving with their boring ap-
paratus down to the bottom of the
, soil, here perhaps IL inches from the
surface, there or 4 feet. The reddish,
brow Or grey results of their digging
4, are sent to the central bureau in
Washington, there to become part of
permanent and rapidly growing col
, lection. This classification is one of
immense value to scientific men as
well as to all the agricultural inter
ests of the country, and one that is
now, through the cooperation If the
experts working under Chief Whit
ney's supervision, being reduced to a
more definite scheme of classification
tnan any ever made. before.
1t is at all events characteristic OF
the cooperation that is possible be-
tween the experts in the government
service and the modern university
that one of the candidates for one of
the higher degrees of the George
Washington university, George N
Coffey, in charge of the work Of the
bureau of soils, should be gathering
from his daily labors and from study
under eminent scientists the material
necessary for thesis upon this i'm
portant subject of soil classification.
Working with the assistance of tvs,
authorities in special lines who are
members of the faculty of the George
Washington University,-Profess
George p. Merrill, head curator of the
department of geology of the United
States museum, since 1897, and Pro
! lessor Cleveland Able. meteorologist
/. and founder of the first daily weather
report in the United States, he whom
the press of the seventies and eighties
knew as "old probabilities, Mr..
Coffey is endeavoring to classify the
| results of governmental investigators
in very important field.
For such undertakings are much
more closely connected with everyday
life than might appear on the surface
Millions upon millions of dollars have
been wasted by American farmers
ignorant of the capabilities of differ
ent soils. in just the same way that
millions of dollars are wasted an
nually in education by parents who
fail to appreciate that children are
not eli alike.
Indeed, the scientists of the Bureau
of Soils will tell you that the various
earths are not so unlike the human
beings that are supposed to be fash
Toned either from common or IN.
common clay. You can, if you hit
on the right process of education
make good negro out of a black
boy. but you can not possibly make a
white man out of him. So from land
that is not naturally adapted to rails
ing strawberries or roses or tobacco
you cannot by any amount Of fertili
cation produce what it was never in
tended to produce. Yet simple as
such proposition appears to be,
somebody is forever possessed with a
notion that because the climate or
some other factor is favorable he can
raise certain crops on land that con.
tains too much clay and not enough
sand. or that does not drain Alright
and never will. Some soils are further
more naturally prone to diseases, just
as some families and even races show
inherlled lack of vitality and hence
are subject to tuberculosis. cancer
and various other diseases.
One of the factors which have been
recognized in such a study as the one
that Mr. Corey is making to satisfy
the requirements of the department
of graduate work of the George Wash
ington university is that Of the me
chanical competition of the soil The
term means essentially the relative
coarsness or fitness of the mineral
particles that are the basis of all
soil. The ordinary scheme of CLASH
fication runs from gravel through