Soil Areas Medical Rejectees Give Similar Maps

A comparison between maps showing major Missouri soil areas, left, and medical rejectees per 1000 registrants for the World War II Selective Service, right, shows definite similarities. Draft rejections were lowest in northwest Missouri counties where, on the average, the best soil in the state is located. And, rejections were highest in the Ozarks and southeast lowlands where soil is poor or where living conditions are not average. Rejections in other soil areas of the state range between the two extremes according to soil fertility and living conditions.

The map on the right and the legend beneath shows medical rejectees among registrants for the World War Selective Service Act during a certain period as averages of the counties in major Missouri soil areas.

 

There is an interesting similarity in the map of medical rejectees for World War II and the map of the major Missouri soil areas, says Dr. W. A. Albrecht, chairman of the University of Missouri soils department.

Now that there is increasing concern about growing population pressure on the land, workers are finding that soil has four dimensions instead of two as has been commonly supposed. In addition to the two customary dimensions of length and breadth, Albrecht adds the two dimensions of depth and fertility.

Also, workers are becoming concerned about how bountifully people in this country shall be fed. Quantity has been the common measure of the supply of food but Albrecht points out that food quality is important for food may be filling but not nourishing.

The maps of different crops in this country have long been connected with maps of soil fertility. Alfalfa has been “natural” on less weathered, mineral-rich soils. A liberal supply of essential plant nutrients in these soils has made alfalfa the high-protein, bone-building forage commonly used to supplement protein-poor corn in feeding livestock.

Red clover, another prized protein rich forage, seems to be failing. Albrecht explains this is caused by declining soil fertility not being able to provide complete proteins for its growth, its protection against diseases, and its generous seed delivery.

Carbohydrate-producing crops are “easier to grow” than protein-rich crops. Dwindling soil fertility does not nourish crops well enough to convert carbohydrates into high-quality protein feed as readily as it helps to pile up carbohydrate bulk of less nutritional value.

The similarity between maps of different crops and soils maps is evident, Albrecht says, since soil fertility represents protein possibilities in crops and thereby in animals. Also, the similarity between soils and both wildlife and domestic animals is evident.

Soil is connected with these lower life forms in that soils are the cause of them through better nutrition–of quality rather than quantity.

And the maps of the quality of the human body, as determined by the selective service system, suggest that humans, like the animals in the lower part of the biotic pyramid, rest on the soil foundation for nutrition.