In the summer, there is no dew, and the ground dries up and cracks,
the plants withering up: 1841, not considered as a dry year, gave only
8-1/2 inches of rain; but in 1831, one of the wettest, the moisture
interfered with agriculture more than the drought does, saturating the
soil, which rests on a deep impermeable clayey formation.' In April
and May, when the snows melt, the steppe is a vast sea of mud, liable
to be hardened by occasional frosts, until, as the season advances,
myriads of crocuses, tulips, and hyacinths, cover the soil, which
perhaps a few days later will be hidden by north-east snowstorms, or
drenched by gales from the north-west. No rain falls for two months
after the middle of June, the luxuriant herbage withers more rapidly
than it grew, and, except in a few spots near the streams, the steppe
becomes a black, arid waste. Yet in some parts of these regions the
vegetation is extraordinary: 'the wormwoods and thistles grow to a
size unknown in the west of Europe; it is said that the thistle-bush,
found where these abound, is tall enough to hide a Cossack horseman.
The natives call all these rank weeds, useless for pasture, _burian_,
and, with the dry dung of the flocks, this constitutes all the fuel
they possess. One curious plant of the thistle tribe has attracted the
notice of most travellers--the wind-witch, as it is called by the
German colonists, or leap-the-field, as the Russian name may be
translated.
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