— 10 — 



The choise of hardy, drought proof [xerophilous] plants or species 

 may undoubtedly weaken the withering effect of drought, but only to a 

 certain extent. At present this measure against drought is mainly theore- 

 tical, inasmuch as practical farming has set apart only bearded winter 

 wheat [triticum vulgare, cereale hybernum] and edible 6 - rowed barley 

 [Hordeum vulgare genuinum] as being more hardy and at the same time 

 more prolific. At the preseut moment it is difficult to say what a well 

 follov/ed np selection of plants would give us as regards xerophilous 

 forms. One consideration however must be born in mind: -that in moist- 

 years the drought resisting qualities of the plants would be thown away; 

 and if there was a run of 3 or 4 such years then those qualities might be 

 lost entirely. To preserve the xerophilous type in all its purity is would 

 be absolutely necessary to have a reserve of seed, therefore, for several 

 years, and, this is not adaptable to detached practical farming here, with 

 its settled organization. 



Steppe arboriculture as a means of fighting against drought, seems 

 to have lost favour within the last decade. Investigation [H. Morosow, 

 N. Adamow, H. Wisotzkii, P. Ototzkii and others] has shown that „woods 

 dry up the sub-soil intensively, diminish the ground-water, thickening it 

 in salt solution, and on the neighbouring fields, especially on those sur- 

 rounded by woods they not only fail to equalise, but quite noticeably 

 increase the daily variation of temperature [Wisotzkii]. Then again seve- 

 ral failures with regard to steppe arboriculture created a certain bias 

 against it. It may be that this came about through the steppe arboriculture 

 itself having been put on a different level to that required by certain 

 considerations. With cur dry steppe sub - soil and extremely deep -lying 

 ground water one cannot count upon success in creatingforest as thickly wooded 

 as those in northern regions. A few years after the trees have been 

 planted, owing to the extreme thickness of the interlaced roots, the re- 

 serve soilwater disappears, and as the atmospheric residue of water is 

 insufficient the trees perish through drought in the deep soil layers. 



Steppe arboriculture must be understood as tree-planting and the 

 most rational way of undertaking it is to arrange the trees in one or two 

 rows, not more. They are then able to benefit by the moisture from the 

 belts of soil contiguous to both sides of the rows of trees. 



Then it is necessary to bear in mind another circumstance: that 

 trees, even if only a scant, single rowed plantation, minimise the injurious 

 effect of wind, which acts so destructively on unprotected steppe growths. 

 If the deep soil layer, which is out of reach of annual cultivated plants, 

 has a paucity of water under tree plantation, all that water evaporates 

 in to the air the humidity of which increases and at the same time in- 

 creases the chance of rain. 



