Los Angeles herald., 1907-05-12

YN the cabinets of the bureau of soils
a part of Uncle Sans department OF
agriculture in Washington, is to be
seen the most extensive collection OF
dirt-unless possibly in the streets of
New Ytork-to be found in North Amer
lea. The subject to the visitor looks
a very dry one. In a sense it is so, for
If the tops should suddenly be removed
from the almost innumerable little
glass bottles in which specimens OF
soil and subsoil are preserved ana
stirring breeze should be set whizzing
in the room, a miniature example or
the combined dust of the United States
could be raised in way to make one
who has journeyed in summer time from
Maine to Southern California appre-
ciate that it is possible to get the ef-
feet of travelling intensively without
stirring a foot.
Most people, of course, are interested
in dirt and dust only to avoid them,
but the young scientists in govern
ment employ are today creating new
science through study OF the little
punches of earth that are pulled up by
sssoil augers'' from every district OF
our domain A typical area is Sc
lected. the field workers go over 1t,
driving with their boring apparatus
down to the bottom of the soil, here
perhaps twelve inches from the surface,
there three or four feet. The reddish,
brown or gray results of their digging
are sent to the central bureau In WASH
ington. there to become part of a per-
manent and rapidly growing collection.
This classification is one OF immense
value to scientific men as well as to all
the AGRICULTURAL interests of the coun-
try, and one that is now, through the
co-operation of the experts working
under Chief Whitney's supervision oe-
ang reduced to more definite scheme
of classification than any ever made
before.
II is at all events characteristic OF
the co-operation 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 Wasn-
ington university, George N. Corey, IN
charge of the work of the bureau OF
soils, should be gathering from MS
daily labors and from study under emil
nent scientists the material necessary
for a thesis upon this important sub
;1ect of soil classification. Working
with the assistance of two authorities
In special lines who are members OF
the faculty of the George washington
university Prof. George P. Merrill,
head curator of the department OF
geology of the United States museum
since 1897, and Prof. Cleveland Aooe,
meteorologist and founder of the frst
daily weather report in the United
States, he whom the press of the '7Os
and SOS knew as "Old Probabilities"
Mr.. Coffey is endeavoring to CLASSIFY
the results of the labors of whole
generation of governmental investlga-
tors in a 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 nave
been wasted by American farmers, ig-
norant of the capabilities of different
soils, in Just the same way that mil
lions of dollars are wasted annually
in education by parents who fail TO
appreciate that children are not all
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
ioned either from common or uncom-
mon clay. You can, if you hit on the
right processes of education, make a
good negro out of a black boy, but you
cannot possibly make white man out
of him. So from land that is not nat
urally adapted to raising strawberries
or roses or tobacco you cannot by any
amount of fertilization produce what
Ut was never lnlcI1uGu " PAOo0NS' ANS
simple as such a 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
contains too much clay and not enough
sand, or that does not drain Alright ana
never will. Some soils are, further
more, naturally prone to diseases, just
as some families and even races show
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subject to tuberculosis, cancer ana
various other diseases.
One of the factors which have been
recognized in such a study as the one
that Mr.. Coffey is making to satisfy
the requirements of the department OF
graduate work at the George Washing
ton university is that of the mechani-
cal composition of the soil. The term
means essentially the relative coarse
ness or fneness of the mineral particles
that are the basis of all soil. The
ordinary scheme of classification
runs from gravel through sands sandy
loams loans and silt loans to clays.
If the particles of a specimen of earth
are prevailingly coarse the soil is apt
to have one value; if they are for the
most part fine, quite another value.
There is a great deal of variation
among even scientists in the use OF
IQeSe IPTIlS anu IL 10 NIL OOlLSJ . PNA
pose to try and secure more accurate
and uniform usage so the work of DIFF
ferent investigators will be more com
parable. Some scientists think that
this question of mechanical compost
tion is the most important of all
Even those who hold a less extreme
view are agreed that it is certainly
very vital.
The reasons for the differences of
soils as regards size of particles in
wolves the whole fascinating geological
story of the North American continent.
All along the fiat coastal plains of the
Atlantic from New York city to the
southern tip of Florida are immense
tracts of sandy soil which tell to the
geologist a tale of the upward pushing
of the ocean bed in comparatively
recent times, with the result of ex-
posing a great shelf 200 miles wide at
its greatest extent in North Carolina.
In this district, where so much of the
garden truck of the whole country Is
raised, the soils are composed largely
of sand washed down by rivers from
the Appalachian mountains and Pied
mont plateaus to the west.
oh ;n T0iadrnnnt holt