The Soil Survey Manual, USDA Handbook No. 18, provides the major principles and practices needed for making and using soil surveys and for assembling and using related data. The term ?soil survey? is used here to encompass the process of mapping, describing, classifying, and interpreting natural three-dimensional bodies of soil on the landscape. This work is performed by the National Cooperative Soil Survey in the United States and by other similar organizations worldwide. The Manual provides guidance, methodology, and terminology for conducting a soil survey but does not necessarily convey policies and protocols required to administer soil survey operations. The soil bodies contain a sequence of identifiable horizons and layers that occur in repeating patterns in the landscape as a result of the factors of soil formation as described by Dokuchaev (1883) and Jenny (1941).

This edited volume offers a broad-ranging collection of essays chronicling the development of the U.S. Soil Survey and its influence on the history of soil survey as a scientific discipline that focuses on mapping, analysis, and description of soils. Soil scientists, teachers, students, historians, and agriculturalists will appreciate the detailed account of the survey's past and the discussion of its future direction.