ABSTRACT
For nearly a hundred years, the Census of Agriculture, and the annual reports of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in particular, have presented statistics on the area of land used for various purposes. Except in a very general way, these data on land use have not been matched to information on land capability. Numerous studies of local areas have considered land characteristics or quality and the use of land; but these have been confined to relatively small areas, without general or national coverage, and most of the various studies have used different methods so that their results are not readily comparable.
