Members in the News: Million Acre Mappers

Soil surveys are the ultimate in working in the field. Most times, you start with an aerial photograph of the terrain, which you break up into squares, and “start walking,” according to this practitioner, who has covered 30 counties in New York state as well as other turf, including the state of Alaska, where he logged some 90,000 miles, often carrying a sidearm to protect against wild critters, mostly bears. Erwin and his partners would be dropped off with backpacks for a daily survey.

A soil scientist carries a few basic pieces of equipment, including a level, soil testing kit (strapped to his belt), a spade and an augur. An experienced hand could tell what he was standing on by just looking at it. Otherwise, you had to dig a hole or drill down with an auger. Around New York, you didn’t have to bore down more than a few inches, because soil development hasn’t been that intense, maybe 1 inch in 500 years. In the southern United States, Erwin says, the layering is more intense.

On the job, he’s always careful to get permission to walk someone’s land, if that’s possible. (On the Onondaga Nation, where surveyors had been warned off, he followed the laying of a pipe line.) But he’s been confronted by angry landlords with guns, angry bulls, angry dogs, even, one time, by a woman smoking a cigar.

Most of the time, though, the surveyor walks his grids, mapping open country as he goes, following the soil patterns up and down washes and up gullies. Of Onondaga County’s more than 507,000 acres, one of the most challenging for Erwin was his survey of the Tully Valley, south of Syracuse, which included lots of glacial potholes and mushy soil. One time, his augur sunk all the way down to the handle.