pected this soil is very fertile , especially one kind of it, 

 which is well known under the name of tschernosom and is 

 productive in the highest degree. So far as regards the 

 soil therefore the steppes are everything that could be desired. 

 If the climate would give the soil the smallest chance, the 

 steppes would grow crops an(J trees as well as any country on 

 the face of the Earth. 



The less fertile plains classed by professor Karl Koch un- 

 der the name of pampas are also perfectly productive when 

 supplied with water. Nothing in their soil is opposed to the 

 growth of forest trees. 



After the steppes and pampas the only remaining specially 

 distinctive soil is that of the salt deserts but it is now per- 

 fectly well known that by the aid of fresh and running water 

 even the most strongly impregnated salt soils can be made to 

 grow plants as well as any other soil. It has been done on 

 a considerable scale in the Salt-lake district of Northwest Ame- 

 rica, and there is no reason to doubt that similar means would 

 produce like results in the South of Russia. 



The great difficulty in the way .of covering these plains 

 with woods and crops is the want of water, and at present 

 there seems no other source from which to procure water but 

 the rivers which pass thro' the country. There seems to be 

 no reservoir in the underlying strata from which it could be 

 procured by boring at least, according to one present infor- 

 mation, the chances are against this, altho' it may well be 

 worth while to determine how far this is the case by actual 

 experiment. In some districts a year or more occasionally 

 passes without a shower of rain refreching the earth, and 

 very generally not a drop falls in the whole country from the 

 end of May to the middle of September. It rains no doubt in 

 spring and autumn, and snows in winter, but the country is 

 so uniformely level, and what is of more importance the sub- 

 jacent strata are so uniformely level, never having been dis- 



