96 SIliEKlA. 



The iiortlioniiiioht ot the zrtnoH just describeil is a region where tigriculture exists but 

 sporadically. It consists ol' unbroken urinans or expanses of forest and swamp, for the most 

 part wholly unsuiteii to tillage and brought under the plough only in narrow strips, on the 

 margins of the larger rivers and owing their conversion to a condition fit for cultivation to 

 their influence on the drainage. The arable lands are disposed partly on portions of the 

 river valleys roinparatively elevated, and so not subject to being drowned by the ordinary 

 overflow of the rivers; partly ou Ihe inclined banks calleil u v a I s, uniting the bottom of the 

 valley with the flat interriveriiie space; and partly in places where the valley is not bounded 

 by gently sloping sides but by abriijil precipices or yars; in such cases the narrow strips 

 of the plateau bordering these yars are cultivated, behind whicli again commence the untilled 

 expanses of the swampy urman. As reganls the soils, in the lields belonging to the first grouj) 

 prevail very sticky clayey soils, partly gray, slightly tinged with humus, partly black, con- 

 taining from ]0 to 15 per cent of this substance. The black soils present two varieties; the 

 lirst is an argillaceous chernoziora upon the localities with a raised contour, the most fertile 

 of all the soils met with in the given region. The second shows black earth upon the spots, 

 which are depressed and sull'er from an excess of inoisturo; it is a very poor and baiTen 

 soil of a peaty character unable even to yield satisfactory crops of winter rye and only 

 atlapted to sowing oats. Upon the sloping valley sides, or uvals, soils of a more friable nature 

 predominate, although for the most part of a clayey character, fairly rich in humus and stained dark 

 brown, upon a reddish-yellow clayey subsoil. These soils together with the clayey chernoziom 

 of the river valleys are reputed to be the best, Uval fields are valued the more that owing 

 to their situation they are better secured than the others from unfavourable atmospheric influ- 

 ences. Finally tlie lands tilled along the yars on the skirts of the interriverine plateaux have 

 a soil very poor in humus and capable of yielding harvests only by the liberal application 

 of manure. They are partly crumbly sandy tracts in the regions nearest to the Ural with an 

 appreciable admixture of small stones or g a 1 k a s, partly sour clayey soils of the type pre- 

 vailing in the localities lying further to the south. 



The whole central zone of the Tobolsk government presents a perfectly flat plain in- 

 tersected more or less by wide valleys belonging to difl'erent rivers and streams. Like the 

 northern zone, it has for the most part a forest character. But in contradistinction to the 

 northern zone, forests of deciduous trees, principally birch predominate instead of conifers. More- 

 over, the morasses although very extensive yet here occupy much less of the total area 

 than in the northern zone. Hence it is that in the localities situated in the middle zone not 

 only are the river valleys suited for agricultural operations together with the bordering lands, 

 but more or less considerable portions also of the inteniverine plateaux. The lands suitable for 

 raising grain are here at times spread over more or less extensive tracts, at others in small 

 patches between woody or swampy lauds unfitted for cultivation. The soil conditions of 

 these forest fields are > very monotonous, they are almost exclusively so-called b i e 1 i k s, 

 characterised by a very thin layer of turf, a vershok or vershok and a half thick, under 

 which lies a stratum five or six vershoks thick of almost unproductive, light-gray, sour, 

 clayey soil, superimposed upon a reddish yellow clay. These bieliks fairly useful to the farmer 

 when manured, without it are very illsuited to agriculture on account of their properties 



