TAKING STOCK OF OUR SOILS

Entrusted To My Care
Copyright 1966 Western Producer Prairie Books
243 pages,
ISBN 0-88833-175-4.

Of course there are wide variations within each of those major soil zones and a farmer can be expected to have more interest in the soil on his half section than in the zone belts cutting across provincial boundaries. To furnish that information needed by individual operators, land purchasers, business men and planners, there had to be surveys with the results interpreted and recorded in reports and on maps.

Soil surveys may have been Canada's best public investment. It will always be a matter of regret that they didn't Come sooner to influence settlement policies. The first North American soil surveys were in the United States, some years before they were undertaken in Canada. With Dr. Milton Whitney as Chief of the Bureau of Soils in the United States Department of Agriculture, the earliest survey was organized in 1899. It "was a modest enough effort and, most people being unconvinced of its importance, the results were disappointing.

In Canada, the pioneer soil survey activities were in Ontario where some field studies were carried out in 1914. But only after 1920 was the work properly systematized. Although federal and provincial governments and universities worked co-operatively, the pioneer names calling for special recognition are mainly those of university men - Prof. F. A. Wyatt of Alberta, Prof. A. H. Joel of Saskatchewan, Prof. J. H. Ellis of Manitoba and Prof. G. N. Ruhnke of Ontario.

The surveys were started in Alberta in 1920, Saskatchewan in 1921, Manitoba in 1927, British Columbia in 1931, Quebec in. 1934 and Nova Scotia in 1934. In all provinces, work continued With no more than minor interruptions. When the first Alberta report was published in 1925, covering soils in the Fort Macleod area, authors F. A. Wyatt and J. D. Newton acknowledged that credit should be divided between the Alberta Department of Agriculture, Dominion Department of Interior and University of Alberta. The provincial department provided funds for field operations and printing; the federal department supplied topographical data and later gave financial support, and members of the University Department of Soils - of which Wyatt was the head - conducted the field and laboratory work. This became the general pattern in the provinces.

There was temporary setback in the troubled 30s but the soil surveys were again pressed forward by men who realized that agriculture and the nation were in urgent need of the information the work would make available. An important step was taken in 1940 - the formation of the National Soil Survey Committee. The provinces were vigorously pursuing their survey programs and the committee's purpose was to co-ordinate the efforts to ensure that classifications were uniform and comparable.

The first need in any province was for a reconnaissance survey to furnish general information. It was acknowledged at the time that more detailed studies would be needed, particularly where there were special circumstances: like irrigation. As time went on, the importance of obtaining information about unoccupied northern soils became apparent and in several provinces, programs were undertaken to obtain that information about the extent of useful farm lands beyond the rim of settlement.

In provinces with big areas of unoccupied northern territory, the surveys conducted by means of ground crews and pack horses were slow - too slow in the light of growing interest in northern development. About 1955, the survey of relatively inaccessible northern regions was being undertaken by helicopter with results said to be very satisfactory. For Alberta, it could be reported in 1960 that the exploratory survey had embraced more than 50,000,000 acres in the North, bringing the project close to completion.

People who were familiar with the North were not surprised that survey data showed only small fractions of the area as having practical suitability for cultivation. For more than two-thirds of it, there seemed to be no better purpose than forestry. But where land was suitable for forestry and unsuitable for agriculture, the sooner the facts were established, the better. The surveys would permit lines of demarcation between one kind and another.

From data gathered in the course of the soils specialists' work in the fields came reports and maps showing the distribution of soil types, character of the parent rocks, nature of layers in the soil profile, surface characteristics, drainage. vegetation and so on.

With the advancement of soil surveys in all the provinces, the reports and maps found increasing use as guides in the making of public policy. Of Alberta's first report of soil survey, the authors said it is "not only valuable to the farmers, but it is likewise valuable to the landseeker, colonization agent, district representative, experimental farm, land appraiser, banker, road commissioner, real estate dealer, provincial and dominion governments."

In other words, soil, directly or indirectly, concerns everybody in a community and should be seen as something of fundamental importance in economic and social planning. Almost like the plants he cultivates,man's "roots" are in the soil and the inventories should be reminders of dependence upon it and responsibilities to it.