BUREAU OF SOILS. JANUARY 21, 1907. (Part of testimony, given on above date, before Committee on Expenditures in the Department of Agriculture.) STATEMENT OF PROF. MILTON WHITNEY, CHIEF OF THE BUREAU OF SOILS, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. The CHAIRMAN. You are Chief of the Bureau of Soils? (The witness was here sworn by the Chairman.) The CHAIRMAN. How long has your bureau been organized? The CHAIRMAN. That is some 12 years. How long have you been at the head of it? Professor WHITNEY. Since it was organized. The CHAIRMAN. For the whole time? Professor WHITNEY. Yes. I will say, however, that the bureau as a bureau has been in existence only about five years. It was formerly a division. The CHAIRMAN. Were you at the head of the division when it was a division? Professor WHITNEY. When it was organized; yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. And was there any increase of personnel when you changed from a division to a bureau; and if so, what? Professor WHITNEY. Yes; there was a considerable increase in personnel, the change carrying with it a larger appropriation. The CHAIRMAN. Was there any increase in the scope of the work? Professor WHITNEY. There was an increase in the scope of the work. The CHAIRMAN. What was the original scope of your work from 1894 up to about five years ago, which would be 1901—was it 1901? From 1894 to 1901 it was a division? Professor WHITNEY. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. What was the scope of the work from the organization of the division until you changed from a division into a bureau ? Professor WHITNEY. We were making, during that preliminary period, general investigations on the soil in its relation to plant growth, and it was not until the time of the reorganization that we had gotten the methods and the comprehension of the whole scope of soil investigations to a point where we could gradually extend it into the lines that have since been developed. When I took charge of the division. 317 (Witness: Whitney) the subject of soil investigations was in a very unsatisfactory shape. Very little progress had been made in the past fifty years since Liebig announced the mineral theory of plant growth and since the German experiment stations had demonstrated the theory of mineral plant growth by their experiments in pot culture and in water culture, which extended from 1865 to 1873. Subsequent to 1873, when the world accepted fully the teachings of Liebig along these lines, very little progress had been made in the further study of the soil and its relations to plant growth. The CHAIRMAN. And those were the conditions that you found in 1894? Professor WHITNEY. Yes; those were the conditions I found in 1894 when the work was organized in the Department of Agriculture. The CHAIRMAN. Can you give a broad differentiation between the scope of the work you were doing in 1894 and that which you began to do in 1901, or when the Bureau was organized? Professor WHITNEY. In the period between the organization of the division and the organization of the Bureau the Department had continued its investigations, and had brought out the first great generalization that the distribution of plants and native vegetation in any particular region under uniform climatic conditions was dependent largely upon the physical character and condition of the soil, and it was after the recognition of this principle that the soil survey was instituted and has since been built up. We can now determine the general relation of the soil to crops and to native vegetation from the physical character of the soil. The CHAIRMAN. That is, the chemical components of the soil? Professor WHITNEY. No, the physical components of the soil determine largely the adaptation of soils to different crops. The actual yield of crops, however, is dependent upon other factors, which up to 1901 we did not understand; and it was to take up and develop the soil survey in its large extent, and to take up these other factors of soil fertility, and to investigate the real cause of the low yield of crops on some of our soils that the bureau has been extending its work in recent years. The CHAIRMAN. Then, are we to understand that prior to the organization of the bureau the element of soil fertility had not occupied the attention of the division? Professor WHITNEY. No. The question had been considered by the division, but the work that had been done previous to the organi zation of the division was not acceptable, and it was felt that it was necessary to expand the investigations through other methods to arrive at the real solution of the problem. It was at this point that the organization was effected. The CHAIRMAN. What were those other methods? Did they simply involve an expansion of the methods already in existence, or the development of new scientific methods of investigation? Professor WHITNEY. The work of the Bureau of Soils on the question of soil fertility has been developed along new and original lines, by new and original methods, made possible by reason of the advance in physical chemistry, and through the adoption of new methods and new lines of thought which have been developed in the bureau itself. (Witness: Whitney.) The CHAIRMAN. In that respect have you been in advance of the general scientific world, or has the advance been contemporaneous throughout the world on those subjects? Professor WHITNEY. The advance has been contemporaneous with other lines of scientific work. The bureau has kept abreast of other lines that are developing in the same general directions. Particularly is this so along the lines of physical chemistry, which are being applied now to the solution of many problems. For example, the steel problem, the function of carbon in steel, the solution of which practical problems it is believed now can only be arrived at from the point of view of the physical chemist. In my judgment the time is coming, and will probably rapidly approach, when these new ideas of physical chemistry are going to have a very profound influence on industrial work, not only on metallurgy, but in many other of the applied arts. The CHAIRMAN. You mean physical chemistry? That is synonymous with the investigation of soils? Professor WHITNEY. The same lines that we have been depending upon are being applied to the solution of other problems. The matter of the dye industry in Germany, the matter of ceramics in France, have been developed to the high state of perfection which they now ocupy for the reason that in these cases the Government itself has maintained laboratories which have directed the work along these new lines of physical chemistry rather than along the old lines of analytical chemistry. The CHAIRMAN. That is rather in connection with the development of manufacturing industries than the development of agriculture, is it not? Professor WHITNEY. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. The illustrations that you have given? Professor WHITNEY. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. Your bureau, as I understand it, is confined practically to physical chemistry so far as it may relate to practical agriculture? Professor WHITNEY. Yes. Now, the study of the soil is quite similar to the study of many of the products of the industrial world. The soil is the material out of which we manufacture not only the food, but the material which we use in many of our industrial lines, and it is the understanding of the soil, the way it acts, and the way it can be used for the production of what we want that lies at the basis of agricultural practice. The CHAIRMAN. Is not that a very broad definition of soil? It may be perfectly scientific, but I do not understand how the soil is necessarily connected with a manufacturing industry, except as they may be manufacturing from clay or something of that kind. Professor WHITNEY. NO. The CHAIRMAN. Probably I do not get your idea. Professor WHITNEY. We must have our cotton, we must have our fibers, and we must have our food products. The CHAIRMAN. No; I had in mind metal manufactures. Professor WHITNEY. And we have to produce these on the soil. We want to convert the soil-to use the soil-to produce our food and clothing. (Witnesses: Whitney, Zappone.) The CHAIRMAN. That limits it. Your suggestion was limited to these elements? Professor WHITNEY. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. Why was it not feasible to continue the work of that bureau or division under the form of a division as distinguished from a bureau? Professor WHITNEY. Well, for administrative purposes, the work had become so large that it was thought best that the bureau organization should be attached to it rather than the divisional organization. The CHAIRMAN. Before that, while you were a division, you were in the division of chemistry? Professor WHITNEY. No; the work was started in the Weather Bureau. I was appointed as chief of the division of agricultural soils in the Weather Bureau under a clause relating to "the study of climatology and its relation to the soil." The work was contiued in the Weather Bureau from the climatological side until it was realized that it would be better to take it out of the Weather Bureau and give it a separate organization. The CHAIRMAN. And then was it put into a division? Professor WHITNEY. Then it was put into a division. The CHAIRMAN. And was the division attached to any bureau? Professor WHITNEY. It was not. There were only two bureaus in the Department at that time-the Weather Bureau and the Bureau of Animal Industry. The CHAIRMAN. There would not seem to be, prima facie, any close connection between the soil and the Weather Bureau, but I can see where the connection might come in. Mr. ZAPPONE. It was practically a division in the Weather Bureau. At the time the law was passed I believe there was some doubt as to what scientific bureau of the Department it properly belonged, and the lawmakers finally, of their own motion, attached it to the Weather Bureau. That is my recollection of it. Professor WHITNEY. At that time it was thought that the physics of the soil, the moisture, and temperature were very important factors in determining the relation of the soil to crops, and the Weather Bureau had, before I was officially connected with the Department at all, provided some means to help my investigations, which were at that time being carried on at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. The CHAIRMAN. So that this was more or less a development of that meteorological feature? Professor WHITNEY. It was a direct development of the work I had been doing for the Department through the Weather Bureau. The CHAIRMAN. Does it cost more or less to do the work of your bureau under the bureau organization than it did under the division. organization? Professor WHITNEY. It costs less. The CHAIRMAN. And will you explain how you get the economy, or how you did get the economy? Professor WHITNEY. It costs less for this reason, that with the larger funds at our disposal we are able to do more work with the (Witness: Whitney.) organization in Washington than we would do with a smaller appropriation. The CHAIRMAN. That could be predicated upon both a division organization and a bureau organization, could it not? Professor WHITNEY. With the bureau organization we have a complete organization in Washington, with a chief clerk and the officials that are necessary and are generally recognized in the bureau organization; and with such an organization as we have, which I think is a very good organization, the work, in my judgment, costs less than it did when I had fewer assistants, and I had myself to take on a good many duties that I now leave to clerks and assistants that are under me. And with any further extension of the work of the bureau, with the organization that we have, we could double or treble, or increase four or five times, the amount of our field work without any corresponding increase in the amount of money that it costs to maintain our central organization. You can understand that with a larger organization you can do work cheaper than you can with a small one. The CHAIRMAN. If you eliminate subheads and concentrate the work? Professor WHITNEY. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. Why should you not have had under your division organization the same personnel that you have now in the bureau organization, and then with the same appropriations that you have now have accomplished the same results? Professor WHITNEY. That is a matter of executive policy. The CHAIRMAN. Did your personnel change much when you went from a division organization into a bureau organization? Professor WHITNEY. It did not, except that we took on additional help through our larger appropriations. The CHAIRMAN. That is, you had the same assistants? Professor WHITNEY. I had the same assistants; yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. What was your own salary when you were at the head of the division? Professor WHITNEY. $2,500. The CHAIRMAN. And it is now $3,500? Professor WHITNEY. Yes. But it also was $2,500 after the bureau was established. The CHAIRMAN. It was not raised at once to $3,500? Professor WHITNEY. It was not raised at once to $3,500; no, sir. The CHAIRMAN. How long has it been $3,500? Professor WHITNEY. I think about four years. I am not quite sure. The CHAIRMAN. It was raised probably the next year. Professor WHITNEY. It was either the next year or the year after that. The CHAIRMAN. We have not gone over it far enough, but what is your general rule as to the heads of the bureaus? They get about $3,500; that is the prevailing salary? Professor WHITNEY. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. You have a chief clerk who gets $2,000. Did you have the same chief clerk when you were in the division? 23848-07-21 |