National Cooperative Soil Survey

The National Cooperative Soil Survey (NCSS) in the United States is a nationwide partnership of federal, regional, state, and local agencies and institutions. This partnership works together to cooperatively investigate, inventory, document, classify, and interpret soils and to disseminate, publish, and promote the use of information about the soils of the United States and its trust territories. The activities of the NCSS are carried out on national, regional, and state levels.

The National Cooperative Soil Survey Program (NCSS) is a partnership led by the United States Department of Agriculture - Natural Resources Conservation Service of Federal land management agencies, state agricultural experiment stations, counties, conservation districts, and other special-purpose districts that provide soil survey information necessary for understanding, managing, conserving and sustaining the nation's soil resources.

While the National Cooperative Soil Survey has involved multiple partners since its inception in 1896, Federal responsibility for coordinating partner efforts has resided within the USDA. However, soil survey responsibilities have moved several times within the USDA:

The original Federal authority for the soil survey of the United States is contained in the record of the 53rd Congress, chapter 169, Agricultural Appropriations Act of 1896.

Milton Whitney was the first Chief of the Division of Agricultural Soil. The division was created under the USDA Weather Bureau in 1894, but, with the inception of National Cooperative Soil Survey efforts, became the Division of Soils as an independent division within the Department of Agriculture. The early vision of soil survey was a survey that combined geography with soil chemistry. The men conducting the surveys were geologists or chemists; none had training in agronomy.

...
Wikipedia