ABSTRACT
There are billions of pedons on Earth. We cannot investigate all of them, but we can group pedons into a manageable number of classes and investigate pedons representative of soils in each class. Then, we can make predictions about similar soils that have not been investigated intensively, but can be assigned to known classes of soils. Thus, soil classification is more than an academic exercise-it allows us to plan land resource allocation and management more effectively utilizing a vast store of knowledge about soils and related land capability and to predict the responses of different soils to management.
