to 30 feet. This peat land is highly fertile and capable of producing splendid crops, but it requires special care, attention, and methods to insure success in its cultivation.

In the Twin Cities, Chicago, Des Moines, Dubuque, Davenport, in fact, throughout Illinois and Iowa and in other States and cities,. are men who are looking for farm homes. A certain type of real estate men advertise these peat and cut-over Minnesota lands as highly fertile, and they are, but the handicap, special problems, necessity for working capital and experience are not advertised, because certain types of landmen and colonizationists seek their commission's only and put these poor people from Iowa and Illinois, on marginal lands,. where during the entire period of their natural lives, they cannot make a success.

It is highly important to our State that it have the soil surveys and authoritative land maps so that the people who desire to buy land and to make their homes in the northland may know absolutely whether or not they have better than an even chance to make a living and create a home. Here is a letter from the soil expert of the Department of Agriculture at the university farm at St. Paul which I would like placed in the record. It happens that under the laws of Minnesota the State auditor has been State land commissioner. During 10 years as land commissioner, and some years as a member of the conservation commission, I learned how vitally important it is to have definite, understandable, authoritative information available to prospective purchasers, so that they will know before they buy land whether it is mineral soil or peat, fertile or marginal, and what their chances will be to win or go broke.

Mr. SANDLIN. What percentage of the counties in your State have been surveyed?

Mr. CHASE. This map which I submit in evidence will show you: For 11 counties maps with reports have been published; for 12 counties the field work is completed, the maps and reports in process of preparation or publication.

Mr. SANDLIN. They are pretty well distributed over the State.

Mr. CHASE. In the valley of the Red River of the North, the field work is completed, and the maps and reports are in course of publication or preparation. In all the big area in central and northeastern. Minnesota, the work has not been started.

Mr. SANDLIN. Where is Lake Itasca?

Mr. CHASE. Lake Itasca is in the southeast corner of Clearwater County, near where Becker, Clearwater, and Hubbard Counties meet. Mr. SANDLIN. Where is Cass Lake?

Mr. CHASE. Cass Lake is up here in the northwest corner of Cass County, near the point of contact of Cass, Hubbard, and Beltrami Counties.

Minnesota has not been idle in seeking to advance this work in which we all are deeply interested. It has supplemented the work of the Federal Government with special soil survey work under Dr. Alway's direction. It has sought to correlate this work with Federal work. For some years there was a special commission to select lands for soil survey, work was done in southeastern Beltrami County, southern Koochiching County, northern Itasca County, southern St. Louis County, and northern Carlton County.

The spirit of the State is friendly to this work and to this appropriation.

Some years ago, Minnesota, decided to lend money to farmers on farm-land security, under what is called the "rural credits act." Whatever the reasons or causes may have been it has inevitably happened that many of the farms on which loans were made have reverted to the State. As a result, Minnesota today is the owner of a considerable number of improved farms, which must be resold, and in this letter, Dr. Alway shows your honorable committee how vitally interested the State is in these adequate soil surveys, that it may have definite knowledge of the farms which it owns and must sell.

Also the States owns in fee more than two million acres of lands which came to it under the various congressional land-grant acts.. I respectfully submit in evidence this letter from Dr. F. J. Alway. (The letter referred to is as follows:)

Hon. RAY P. CHASE,

UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, University Farm, St. Paul, January 22, 1934.

House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.

MY DEAR MR. CHASE: I am writing you as an old friend of soil surveys and soil investigations in Minnesota. I have just learned that the Bureau of the Budget has cut the item for the Soil Survey by the sum of $108,000, or nearly half. This will mean reducing by more than half the assistance to be given Minnesota in the survey of its counties and will further delay the publication of the soil maps and reports of those counties recently surveyed. In the field work the United States Department of Agriculture cooperates with the various States on a 50-50 basis while it bears the entire expense of printing the maps and reports. This cut is proposed just at the time when there is the greatest demand and the greatest need this country has ever known for the information supplied by soil surveys, which are fundamental in planning for agricultural readjustment.

In Minnesota the need of soil surveys is heightened by the large number of farms coming into possession of the State through rural credit loans. Thus the State is immediately interested in 365 farms in Pine County, of which the survey was started last October in cooperation with the United States Department of Agriculture and in 460 farms in Roseau County, which we had planned to start and complete this coming summer. Below is a detailed statement on these two counties to which I have added the corresponding numbers for your home county:

Many of the States are already largely covered by soil surveys, but Minnesota, having started late in its cooperation, is far behind, as may be seen from the attached map.

I understand that as the result of a rule passed last week the appropriation is left entirely in the hands of the Committee on Agriculture and the subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee charged with the appropriation bill for the Department of Agriculture.

With kindest personal regards, I am,

Sincerely yours,

F. J. ALUCEY.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1934.

SOIL SURVEYS

STATEMENT OF HON. M. C. ALLGOOD, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ALABAMA

Mr. SANDLIN. Mr. Allgood, we will hear your statement.

Mr. ALLGOOD. My name is M. C. Allgood, and I represent the Fifth District of Alabama. I am interested in the appropriation for soil survey. As I understand it, the amount has been reduced by the Budget approximately $100,000; is that correct?

Mr. SANDLIN. The total working funds for the three items, $95,550. Mr. ALGOOD. I thought it was approximately $100,000. This work is carried on by the Department of Agriculture, in cooperation with the several State departments of agriculture, Federal funds paying for part of the work and State funds paying for part of the work. We are making increased appropriations to carry on the business of the Government, and, of course, these debts and these obligations eventually will have to be paid. The best resource that we have in the nation is land, the earth; in fact, when farm-commodity prices went so low that there was no return to the farmer, that is when the panic really struck the entire country, because it left the farmer without buying power.

There is a movement on now to take out the marginal lands; the Government to buy them and to take them out of cultivation and out of production, and in order for the Government officials to know which are the marginal lands, it is necessary to have the soil surveys. Mr. SINCLAIR. They would not know how to take these lands out of cultivation unless they had some data or information that a soil survey would furnish.

Mr. ALLGOOD. That is correct, and, if you cut this $100,000 as directed by the Budget, you will then, to a large extent, stop the cooperation of the States; that is, it leaves but little on which they can function.

Mr. SANDLIN. Did you know that there was allotted from the Civil Works $179,052 for this work?

Mr. ALLGOOD. Yes; I knew they had had an appropriation, but we are getting millions of dollars from the C.W.A., and in many instances, I know and you know that from the return standpoint of the work that is being done in our various districts, that there is much of it that is questionable. Of course, it is giving employment to people and it is justified on that ground, and I approve it. But, here is a specific appropriation, Judge Sandlin, that deals with fundamentals. The basic industry of this Nation is agriculture and we certainly do not know any too much about our soils. I regret to see an appropriation decreased that is of such vital importance to millions of our people, especially as there is a movement on foot now to place several millions of people that have left the country because there was not enough remuneration there, who have gone into the city, to the industrial sections. A return to the farm movement is on, as you know, and the farms will have to maintain more and more of our people, more of our citizens, more of our population. I think we ought to safeguard these people and give them all the information we

can. I was formerly commissioner of agriculture in my State, and I was in extension work also. I personally know the importance of the soil surveys and what they mean.

Mr, SINCLAIR. Do you know whether or not the demand for these surveys and maps is very great?

Mr. ALLGOOD. I have calls practically every day; take the C.C.C. camps and the loans for the Federal land banks; I have calls from their agents from the counties that I cannot supply.

Mr. SANDLIN. How many counties in your State have been surveyed?

Mr. ALLGOOD. A high percentage of them. I know Alabama stands high; very few counties have not been surveyed, possibly not more than six counties.

Mr. SANDLIN. Then, it is not needed so much in your State as it is in others?

Mr. ALLGOOD. It is other States that are not as well taken care of as Alabama.

Mr. SINCLAIR. I think a vast part of the United States has not been surveyed.

Mr. ALLGOOD. I do not know the exact percentage.

Mr. SINCLAIR. The hearings will disclose that, probably it will take at the present rate at which the work has been done, something like 25 years to complete the soil survey. That is the testimony of the experts of the Department.

Mr. ALLGOOD. They are behind with the maps, but they are getting those C.W.A. funds in the central office, to help some. We need to carry the field work on, because, as I said, when your industries go down and these panics come, the people can get back on the farm and make a sustenance, and it will take them off relief.

Mr. SINCLAIR. They could live on the farm when they could not live anywhere else?

Mr. ALLGOOD. Yes. I wanted to stress this feature in the appropriation bill, and urge that the $95,550 cut by the Director of the Budget be placed back by this committee.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1934.

SOIL SURVEYS

STATEMENT OF HON. RALPH R. ELTSE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Mr. SANDLIN. Mr. Eltse, we will be glad to hear you at this time. Mr. ELTSE. Mr. Chairman, my home is in the Seventh District of California, and my home city is Berkeley, where the University of California is located. I wish to talk to you a moment concerning the soil-survey work which is carried on by the Federal Government in cooperation with our State government, through the State universityI assume that you gentlemen are familiar with what that soil-survey work is. My colleague, Mr. Cannon, and my colleague, Mr. Thurston, come from Missouri and Iowa. Iowa was my home State, by the way, and unless you are familiar with the conditions in California

and some of the other far Western States, you cannot know or comprehend the full values of the soil-survey work. I know about the soils of Iowa, which I remember from my experience as a boy plowing corn out therenat

As

It has a uniform soil, and it is the same way down in Missouri, Kansas, and the other Central States. In California, however, our soils are very spotted. Within an area of 1 mile, or even less distance, we may find different types of soil. We might find heavy top soil and lighter soils. We might find silt soil, or we might find hardpan, which is not good for anything unless you crack down through it with dynamite, and use it for citrus trees, apple trees, and so forth. Now, I understand that heretofore, in 1932, there was an appropriation of $328,000 for soil surveys; in 1933 the appropriation was $307,000, and in 1934 it was $275,000, of which amount the President requested that $35,000 be held in abeyance, for what purpose, I do not know. The recommendation of the Budget this year is for $150,000. Our people out there are very much concerned about the inadequacy of that appropriation, and Professor Shaw, of the University of California, under whose jurisdiction this soil survey work is done on the part of the State, points out the vital necessity of an adequate appropriation for this work that should be carried on. I have already indicated, our soils are very spotted, and what I wish to point out and stress here in particular is this: That the Federal land bank for the twelfth district, I think it is, located in Berkeley, under the program of the Farm Relief Act, is making loans on lands in California and Arizona, and other States in that district or division. The appraising department of the Federal land bank for the twelfth district works in close cooperation with the soil survey that has been carried on by the University of California, or by the State through the university. Inasmuch as those loans which are being made by the Federal land bank are long-term loans, running for a period of a few years up to 35 years, as I guess some of them are, it becomes very necessary to know what the soil of these farms on which loans are made will produce over a period of years and to what crops it is best adapted. The old rule of thumb method of making appraisals of land, by going out and seeing what sort of crop is growing, and saying "That is a pretty good crop this year, and that is what the land will do", will not be sufficient. They cannot make the appraisals on that basis, or on the basis of the crop-showing in a particular year. You cannot make that sort of appraisement of soil in California, except in a very limited section where we have deep soils, because there is involved the question of the retention of water in irrigation, and the question of whether it is a soil that will retain moisture under irrigation. There are many other conditions that enter into it.

These soils surveys, which consist of maps and reports by the field men, contain the data upon which a true appraisement of those lands may be made, and an estimate made of what they will produce over a period of years. They need that data as a basis for making a real appraisement of the land. Now, in that connection, our people in the State of California, and I am sure that the same thing is true of many other Western States where these conditions prevail, were very much pleased with the attitude of the President which he expressed by saying that he recognized the value of this soil survey work. It was in the light of the President's statement regarding the need for a