Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1907-05-16
A Study Of Dirt and Dust gathered
from the Entire United States.

lnets OF Tie bureau Of soils, a part OF
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 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 subson
are preserved and a stirring breeze
should be set whirring in the room,
a miniature example of the combined
Gust of the United States could be
raised in a way to make one who has
1ourneyed in summer time from
Maine to southern California appreci-
ate that it is possible to get the effect
of travelling intensively without stir
ring a 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
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 it, driving with their boring ap-
paratus down to the bottom of the
soil, here perhaps II inches from the
surface, there or feet. The reddish,
brow Or grey results of their digging
are sent to the central bureau in
Washington, there to become part of
a permanent and rapidly growing col
lection. This classification is one of
immense value to scientific men as
we'll 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.
It 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 a thesis upon this i'm
portant subject of soil classification.
Working with the assistance of two
authorities in special lines who are
members of the faculty of the George
Washington Observation-Disclosures
George P Merrill, head curator of the
department Of geology of the United
States museum, since 1897, and Pro
fessor 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, MIR.
COffey is endeayoring to classify the
results of governmental investigators
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 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 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
toned either from common or IN.
common clay. You can, if you hit
on the right process Of education
make a 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 fertii
cation produce what it was never in
tended to produce. Yet simple as
such a proposition appears to be
somebody is forever possessed with 2
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