The National Cooperative Soil Survey of the United States

By David Rice Gardner, 1957 (reprinted1998)

David Rice Gardner submitted this thesis to the Graduate School in Public Administration of Harvard University as a requirement for his doctoral degree in 1957. As a soil scientist in the Soil Conservation Service, David Gardner had seen the soil survey from the inside while working in scientific and technical positions as well as in administrative ones. Dr. Gardner brought these skills to his historical research and writing on the soil survey program.

This work has been generally available to soil scientists. The purpose of this reprint is to make it available to a broader audience. The author and Harvard University have permitted the Natural Resources Conservation Service to reprint the volume and to distribute it. This version is not a photographic copy of the original. It has been retyped, and the format and pagination have been altered to create a more compact volume. In a few cases capitalization and punctuation have been standardized. Otherwise, the content of this version remains unchanged from the original.