PERCY left the Bureau of Soils with a feeling of deep appreciation
for the uniform courtesy and kindness that had been accorded him,
but with a firm conviction that the laboratory scientists were too
far removed from the actual conditions existing in the cultivated
field. He sought the quiet of his room at the hotel in order to
study the bulletins he had received.

Even with his college training he found it difficult to form clear
mental conceptions of the results of investigations reported in the
bulletins. Sometimes the data were reported in percentages and
sometimes in parts per million. No reports gave the amounts of the
element phosphorus; but PO4 was given in some places and P2O5 in
others. In Bulletin No. 22, the potassium and calcium were reported
as the elements and the nitrogen in terms of NO3, while potash
(K20), quicklime (CaO), and magnesia (MgO) were reported in Bulletin
54.

By a somewhat complicated mathematical process, he finally succeeded
in making computations from the percentages of the various compounds
reported in the soil separates and from the percentages of these
different separates contained in the soils themselves and from the
known weights of normal soils, until he reduced the data to amounts
per acre of plowed soil.

He was especially pleased to find that the essential data were at
hand not only for both the Leonardtown loam and the Porter's black
loam, but also for the Norfolk loam, which he had learned from one
of the soil maps was the principal type of soil southwest of
Blairville on Mr. Thornton's farm; and, furthermore, the Miami black
clay loam of Illinois was included. Percy knew the black clay loam