Partial hydrolysis of a Brown Forest soil with concentrated acid at room temperature brought into solution a complex mixture of amino acids, peptides, and colored N-containing materials. Slightly more than 1/2 the total N and of the amino acid N was dissolved. Fractionation of the soluble material on a cation-exchange resin did not give a good separation into amino acid and non-amino acid material; 36% of the amino acid material was found in the water eluate and 51% in the NH40H elute. Further fractionation of the NH4OH eluate on an anion-exchange resin gave a somewhat better separation; the result was, in general, what one might expect if a complex mixture of amino acids and peptides were being fractionated. Paper electrophoresis of a partial hydrolyzate of a podzol indicated the presence of peptides in the dissolved material.