TENUEE AND USE OF LAND. 97 



ami are very stingy. Cereals only derive nourishment from the superior turf layer, and 

 when the latter becomes exhausted, which ensues after three or four crops, it is necessary to 

 abandon the field for twenty to twenty-five and more years, until a new turf layer is 

 formed. It is clear under these circumstances why agriculture upon soils of this kind is only 

 capable of a feeble development. It is concentrated in the whole of the central zone along 

 the rivers where the conditions of soil are much more favourable. It is principally the sloping 

 uvals near the rivers that are brought under the plough; these extend in some instances along 

 both banks, in others along one only, attaining in the case of more considerable rivers a 

 breadth of several versts with a height above the valley of thirty to forty sagenes. The soil 

 conditions of the uval lands show little variation; is everywhere a dark brown and clayey, 

 pretty friable, not seldom with an admixture of large gi'ains of quartz visible to the eye; 

 the subsoil is reddish yellow clay. The thickness of the workable layer varies ordinarily 

 from five to eight vershoks. The soil is the richer in vegetable mould and therefore more 

 fertile, the greater the depth of the tillable layer. Above the uvals on the tracts of the 

 interriverine plateau bordering on the same, the soil frequently passes into a black friable 

 form of great thickness, 10 to 12 vershoks and more, and rich in humus, as much as 15 to 

 17 per cent but of little fertility, possessing an undoubted peaty character. Little ploughing 

 is done within the river valleys, for the most part presenting meadows subject to inundation 

 or so narrow that they leave no room for agricultural operations. Where however the valleys 

 are tilled, tenaceous clayey soils prevail of the same types as were described in speaking of 

 the soils of the northern zone. 



But the greatest interest and the greatest variety are afforded by the soil conditions 

 of the southern zone of the government of Tobolsk, which enters into the composition of the 

 so-called Ishimsk steppe. The contour of this steppe is remarkable in the highest degree. 

 On the whole absolutely level, it is scattered over with a number of lakes, between which 

 extend small elevations, ridges or islands. Always long and narrow in horizontal section, 

 their length sometimes reaches many versts, while their breadth at the level of the horizon 

 is measured by hundreds of sagenes and never exceeds a verst, they always trend in the 

 direction of their long axis from W.S.W. to E.X.E. and are not more thai three to four 

 sagenes in height. They have extremely sloping sides and are distinguished by the predomi- 

 nance of dark brown, friable clayey soils with a heavy admixture of white sand, upon a 

 reddish clay subsoil. In appearance closely resembling the uval soils of the middle zone, the 

 soils upon the islands of the Ishimsk steppe, characterized by the thriving upon them in the 

 unploughed state of the wild cherry, are much more fertile and are particularly adapted to 

 the raising of wheat, with which they are accordingly chiefly sown. As for the flat spaces 

 lying between the islands, they are partly naked salt marsh, absolutely stripped of all vege- 

 tation or clothed with a typical flora such as salsola et cetera, partly feather-grass steppe over 

 wtdch are scattered, in scarcely perceptible hollows, spinnies of birch and aspen called 

 «k 1 k a s;>. The soil conditions of the two classes are absolutely different. Upon the open steppe- 

 the soil is so-called podsolonok, that is, dark grey, very tenacious clay, covered with 

 a thin layer of turf. In the kolkas, it is black, very deep, but at the same time very barren, 

 with a decided peaty character. 



7 



