— 11 — 



In a word, tree plant ant ion, but not in the shape of thick woods 

 shows itself to be a powerful weapon against drought. 



With regard to A. Shishkin's method of accumulating water in the 

 soil by means of open ditches, one must treat it as a theoretical consi- 

 deration only for it is too expensive and therefore unattainable. 



Amongst the others methods of fighting against drought A. Shishkin 

 mentions: — „Establishing if possible connexion between the ground-water 

 and the soil-layer" for the purpose of leading the ground water into the 

 upper soil belts. It is scarcely necessary to speak seriously of raising the 

 ground water on the steppe, where it lies at a derth of 140 feet and more 

 and when the only possible way is by capillary action. Kembell's s'milar 

 notion of capillarily raising, not the ground — water, but the sub-soil wa- 

 ter, will also not bear criticism, and is not confirmed by statistics. I shall 

 not stay to analyse the capillary raising of water in the soil here in the 

 introductive port of this work, but shall do it later in a chapter on the 

 movement of soil-water. 



Several authors [Golovkinski, Bliznin, Barakow and others] point to 

 the consideration of watery vapour in the so'l as a condition favourable 

 to restrain or check drought. They consider that as a conseqnence of the 

 fluctuation of temperature in different depth of the so'l and the resulting 

 change in the elasticity of the vapour thereby the latter condenses into 

 liquid drops of water. Golovkinski in his experiments used a glass vessel 

 which he buried in the soil; expecting that the accumulated water in 

 the soil above the vessel would penetrate deeper and would be collected 

 in the vessel. Water was, in fact, found in the vessel but as my expe- 

 riment have proved this water came from condensation of the glass walls 

 of the vessel and funnel placed above it: for in the soil belt nearest to 

 the upper edge of the funnel there was no humidity, even approching a 

 saturated condition, from which alone liqnid drops of water could trickle 

 down. A. Lebedew brings certain statistics regarding water in the sandy 

 dunes of Anapa [of North Caucasus] bnt whether this water was an 

 atmospheric deposit or condensed from air vapour has not been proved 

 experimentally. Even if vapour condenses into liqnid drops in the soil 

 the process in very insignificant and in reality does not effect the balance 

 of soil water. But it is possible in spring and autumn when on the one 

 hand, the difference between the deeper belts and cooling of a'utumn 

 and heating of spring on the other may be considerable that water may 

 be precipitated and condensed on the boundary between them. 



An analysis of these proposed measures of fighting drought has 

 shown that they do not appear reliable and further that they do not 

 clear up the nature of drought, the reasons of its frequent appearances 

 and do not give solidity to the comprehension of the interdependence 



