Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1916 [PAGE 887]

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1916]

PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES.

887

As is the general custom of the University, the traveling and living expenses of our soil survey men have been paid, except when they are located at the University during the winter season. The fact that the soil survey men have been obliged to move frequently, holding their headquarters, as a rule, at. one place only from a few days to perhaps two or three weeks, has rendered any other procedure apparently out of consideration. Even when they have maintained headquarters at one place for three or four weeks or possibly longer, they have often found it necessary to stay over night occasionally at other points in order to avoid driving too great distances. Two conditions have arisen which I think should be called to your attention, although I doubt if they should modify our practise, unless there should seem to be some administrative reason for so doing. First, we have found that it is more economical and entirely feasible to substitute automobiles almost entirely for horse livery. This is in part owing to the increasing cost and difficulty of securing horse livery, in part to the decreasing efficiency of the horse liveries which we are able to secure, and, in part, to the reduced cost for the purchase and maintenance of automobiles. In many places the taxi or automobile livery has almost entirely replaced the horse liveries not only in the larger cities but even in the country towns. For the field season of 1914 we made considerable use of automobile liveries, which were hired in place of horse liveries, and, in the beginning of our field work in 1915, we purchased two Ford touring cars,, the final net cost of which was $460 each. These proved so satisfactory that later in the season we purchased three additional cars at the same price so that all of our five soil survey parties have been provided with Ford cars. Even if we allow $200 depreciation on each machine during the season, the expense of livery was reduced from about $2,550 to $1,585, thus making a saving of nearly a thousand dollars. Probably the expense for operation, repairs, etc., will be greater the second season than the first, but it seems also probable that $200 is more than we shall need to allow for depreciation. In addition to this direct saving, we also save on the time of the men in the field, because they can travel to and from their work so much more quickly in the automobiles than with horse livery, even tho they are able to work a larger area without moving headquarters. Even the f^quent moving of headquarters from one place to another involves considerable loss of time. With the use of automobiles we now maintain headquarters at one point sometimes for three months or more, and this might suggest that we should modify our practise and expect the men to pay their own living expenses while so long located at one point. I find, however, that it is a regular custom for all of our more responsible soil survey men to maintain a home in Champaign or Urbana. Even the unmarried men find it necessary to rent a room thruout the year in order to have place to leave their personal effects which they cannot take with them on the soil survey, and a place to live not only during the winter season but sometimes when they are called in or kept at the University for teaching or other purposes more or less at different times during the summer season. Thus, some of our soil survey men work in the field only during the three summer months, while others may work from April 1 to September, others from June to December 1, and still others during the entire field season. I should like to emphasize the fact that our field parties seem to strive conscientiously to keep their living expenses at the minimum, consistent with living in decent and cleanly places, having wholesome food, which ,is necessary not only to enable them to do the work but also to preserve good health. As a general average, the living expenses amount to $9 a week per man. This includes lodging and board, but it does not include laundry, an item whjch we have never included in such expenses. I find that the corresponding living expenses for single men employed at the University is about $7 a week, so that, counting the average full field season, the annual financial saving to the- men in the field is about $150 in comparison with those employed continuously at the University. In other words, on this basis, the field men should be able to save $150 more during the year than laboratory men receiving the same salary. However, there are other considerations, which in the judgment of Prof. Mosier, myself, and others most familiar with the work, probably fully counterbalance this apparent advantage. Thus, the men at the University normally work eight hours a day with four hours on Saturday, while the soil survey men normally work ten hours a day, including Saturday, and, as an average, they also work at least an hour each evening in copying field notes, transferring soil maps, making reports, etc. The field men are much exposed and I am convinced that they endeavor conscientiously to use their time to the best advantage for the sake of the work. As a rule they work in parties of four. Although more or less scattered during the day, they will meet at least by twos at lunch time, and the four will regularly be together at night, in order to compare and check up the work accomplished. I also find that men who have had experience in our soil survey work but who are now employed continuously at the University prefer to remain at the University rather than to go back into the field work, even with the possibility of saving $150 more from the year's employment. I do not mean that the soil survey men are dissatisfied with their work, but I believe that the present remuneration is about as satisfactorily balanced as it could well be. The second point grows out of the fact that some of our soil survey men have married, and in some cases they find it possible and most satisfactory to arrange to do light housekeeping at the headquarters of the party, even though they remain there only a few months. I feel that such arrangements are by no means objectionable but rather to be encouraged, for it permits, some sort of approach to home life. However, it complicates somewhat the financial accounts, in that in such instances the man boards with his wife and the only method we have found of handling the matter is to ask him to take a receipt from his wife and turn it in as a subvoucher exactly the same as though he were boarding at a hotel. It may even