The NC Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services Agronomic Services provide free of charge boxes for shipping soil samples to their lab.  The shape of the box is such that you can ship 36 samples, which is 4 rows wide by 9 boxes long (see illustrations below).  On the outside of the shipper box are places for the name of the grower and number of shipper boxes that were sent so soil lab personnel can group them together so they can be processed together.  Also, it is recommended that the sheets for the samples of a given shipper box be placed in that shipper box.  By using the soil shippers, this should expedite the process so that the growers get their results quicker.

Figure 1.  Side view of a Soil Shipper.  There is a place for the name of the grower as well as spaces for indicating the number of shippers used for the group of samples submitted (not the number of soil sample boxes in each shipper).  For example, if 4 shippers were used the boxes would be labeled as follows: Box 1 OF 4, Box 2 OF 4, Box 3 OF 4, and Box 4 of 4. 

Figure 2.  Top view of a Soil Shipper with lid open showing arrangement of soil samples boxes.  The box is shaped such that 1 layer of soil samples boxes arranged in 4 rows with each row with 9 soil sample boxes.  With the soil samples placed in soil shipper as listed on the “Soil Sample Information” sheets and shown above, the lab personnel can get the samples ready for processing more quickly.  Also, there are shippers for nematode samples as well.