Dr. Selig Eugen Soskin (1873-1919) was a pioneer and agronomist in Erez Israel. Born in Churubash (Crimea), in 1896 Soskin settled in Erez Israel, where he served as plantation expert on behalf of Hovevei Zion. Together with Aaron Aaronsohn, he explored the country and conducted agricultural experiments. In 1903 he became member of the Zionist Inquiry Commission on the El-Arish project. From 1906 until the end of World War I Soskin served as agricultural adviser in the German colonies in West Africa. From 1918 to 1923 he was director of the settlement department in the central office of the Jewish National Fund (then in The Hague). Soskin advocated intensive farming on small irrigated plots, as against the "mixed" farming on larger units practiced by the Zionist Organization. In 1934 he founded Nahariyyah, establishing an experimental intensive farm there. In the 1940s Soskin advocated hydroponic farming in water or in saturated soil, and in 1945 he founded an experimental station of hydroponics at Ramat Gan. In 1926 Soskin joined the Revisionist movement and became its spokesman on matters of agricultural settlement. From 1927 he acted as political representative of the Union of Zionist Revisionists to the League of Nations in Geneva. After the split in the Revisionist movement (1933), he joined the Jewish State Party. He published many studies, first on his work in West Africa and later on his work in Erez Israel. These studies include Small Holding and Irrigation (1920), Intensive Cultivation and Close Settlement (1926), The Escape from the Impasse (1927), and Land Settlement in Palestine (1929).