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Profiles in the History of U.S. Soil Survey

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And so goes the American food supply.
You've probably seen those bumper stickers "Fed Your Kid Today? Hug A Farmer", but no one would probably let their kid hug a suspicious looking guy covered in dirt, alone in a field, busy probing and measuring soil quality. Critical field work that allows those huggable corporate 'growers' to keep their rice yields up for those Cocoa Krispies hyping up your child in the morning.

This book pays homage to those in-the-scene workers who've mapped and maintain the National soil data base we depend on for food, forests and fun (recreation, for example, on BLM lands, however improperly managed by current conservative crats).

As someone who likes to explore the history of the discipline he's reading, I honed in on chapter 9 "Soil Survey and Soil-Geomorphology" authored by some of our best soil geomorphologists.

Note that one of the authors of this chapter, Holliday, covers just about the same ground in FOOTPRINTS IN THE SOIL (see section 2, "Soil as A Natural Body"), which is also highly recommended for an international perspective.

It was about time (plus parent material, climate, relief, and organisms) that someone wrote a history of the Survey. Soil scientists, agronomists, geographers, geologists and historians will benefit from the long view of those who've faithfully studied one of our most important resources.