- 15 - 



those having a meagre supply of water; and it involuntarily glossed over 

 the characteristies of the distribution of soil water, which only themsel- 

 ves come out in the perceptible deviations of the contents of two, or 

 more contiguous soil layers. 



The sharper these deviations are defined, the more they explain 

 the process of water distribution and it's circulation in the soil. 



In order to explain these processes- distribution and circulation 

 it is necessary to fix a point of observation frow whence these processes 

 with all their modifications, may be kept in view for a long time. 



These point of observation should be fixed at certain depths of 

 strata in the ground in which, during the course of one or more years 

 accurate est-'mates of the quant'ty of water are carried out from time to 

 time, and if these layers are disposed as near as possible to each other 

 as regards depth, then every variation in the amount of water they con- 

 tain may be fixed accurately in the soil layer under investigat'on of 

 horizons lying as near as possible one to the other these principles 9 have 

 followed in my own work. I may add that in ieach horizons a layer of soil 

 was investigated 1 5 c. m. in thickness. To take a sample from such a 

 thin layer of soil with the spoonborer is not possible; therefore I con- 

 structed a soil borer of a special type which rendered it possible to obtain 

 a vertical sample at any depth of the bored hole by means of a ringshapod 

 cut in the walls of the hole. There also in the hole at the same depth, 

 the sample falls at once, into a zinc box which only closes in the open 

 air after having been taken out of the hole'-). 



The method adopted by me, during a period of one or more years, 

 in investigating soil humidity, was the registration in a soil layer of 1 or 

 2 metres, of the amount of water contained in layers of 1 - 5 c. m. thick- 

 ness at every 5 or 10 c. m. That is to say that layers from 5 to 6 — 5 c. m. 

 10 to 11,5 c. m. 15 to 16,5 c. m. and so on, were kept under observa- 

 tion. The registration of humidity was carried out on fallow land, both 

 unmowed and under maize, potatoes, flax, pumpkins and castor plants, 

 then, unber winter wheat, barley, oats and other grasses; on unploughed 

 land lying fallow for many years. 



The total number of estimates of moisture on the Odessa experi- 

 mental field, amonut to about 60,000, and should show themselves 

 ample for arriving at more or less precise results which have been 

 confirmed in every case by the decisions of the control department. 



*) A more detailed description of my borer may be fonnd in my work 

 „ Circulation of water in the soil" Which also describes the whole technical side 

 of taking a vertical sample and of drying it. 



