AS INDICATED BY OSMOMETERS. 83 



of furnishing definite maintained rates of absorption. Nevertheless, it 

 demonstrates an apparently important initial absorption rate and also 

 a subsequent fall, the gradient of which promises to be of some value 

 in the quantitative estimation of the soil water-relation. There seems 

 to be reason to expect that the employment of weaker solutions, as 

 water absorbers, will alleviate this difficulty, but the matter has yet 

 to be studied. Of fundamental interest, however, is the fact that the 

 critical point in soil-moisture content, with which we have here to deal, 

 appears to be approximately the same as that emphasized as the critical 

 optimum water content by workers in other lines of soil physics. 



