100 SIHKKIA. 



rivers and .streams, uoarly ilic \vfiol(j groiiml is not seliiom occupied with arable land with 

 go(xl chernoziom soil. Where Hat {dateaux prevail, there soils of good quality occupy but nar- 

 rovf strips, h(jiiridiiif,' the banks ol' rivers, and there predominate partly wet lands unsuited to 

 agriculture, [)artly arable lamls with a bad soil, of a swampy and vegetable nature. 



With this the sketch of the soil conditions of the Ji^ricultural zone of primitive Si- 

 beria may be terminated. In conclusion it is necessary to say still a few words on the soil 

 conditions of one of the borderlands of Siberia, in reference to which more precise information 

 exists, namely Amouria. 



The three sections into which Amouria was divided above are sharply distinguished in 

 reference to soil. Above the mouth of the Zeya and below that of the iJureya prevail dark 

 brown, clayey soils lying on stony fundamental rocks, in some places covered with a thin 

 turfy layer of liumus, in others entirely free from a tinge of mould. In the inundated meadows 

 of the Amour the clayey soils yield place to coarse-grained, sandy, much less fertile soils, 

 and in the thick woods, to a sour soil with a pale gray tint in the upper layer, and a whitish 

 in the lower. Over the expanse included between the valleys of the Zeya and Bureya the 

 whole area as stated by Professor Korzhinsky <ds composed of sandy clays fairly tenacious 

 in ilie upper levels. They are covered witii a layer of dark mould, having a depth of 4 to 6 

 veishoks on the sloping uvals, and one and a half arshines on the bottoms^. Upon dry ele- 

 vated places this soil in its physical properties and structure recalls the Russian cheraoziom; 

 in the lower places it is manifestly of a half-swampy origin, recalling in all respects the 

 black vegetable soils of Western Siberia and neither in its origin nor significance in farming 

 having anything in common with true chernoziom. 



W^itli the extraordinary variety of climatic and soil conditions ami population sketched 

 in the preceding pages, it is impossible to look for any uniformity in the methods of farming 

 employed in Siberia and especially in the system of field culture. And in fact the systems 

 and types of field culture and the rotations of c¥eps are very varied. 



In those of the Siberian governments which comprise the mass of the agricultural pop- 

 ulation and lands suitable for farming operations, Tobolsk, Tomsk, Yeniseisk and Irkutsk 

 the Transbaikal territory and the cultivated portions of the Akmolinsk and Semipalatinsk, a 

 peculiar system of agriculture prevails which is absolutely unknown in European Russia. It 

 bears the name of the resting and fallow system. Agriculture is in this case founded exclu- 

 sively upon the exploitation of the productive forces of the land, unsupported by any ma- 

 nuring, and renewed by the combination "of two means, the abandoning of the land to waste, 

 and the rotation of crops with fallow. The land, whether cleared from forest or ploughed up 

 in the open steppe, is sown two or three years consecutively with grain, and then left a 

 year in fallow. It is then sown one or two years with gi'ain and then again goes under 

 fallow. Such a rotation is continued until the severe falling off in yield and the choking 

 with weeds compel the land to be abandoned to rest, and a new patch to be broken up. The 

 land is allowed to rest until definite signs, which are well known to the peasants, show that 

 its productiveness has been sufficiently renewed. Then it is again ploughed up and the same 

 process is gone through from the very beginning. At the same time it may be said, as a 

 general rule, that in the beginning of the period of cultivation and on the fallows more 



