Extracts of several chernozemic soils of southern Alberta were prepared by 2 procedures. The extracts were fractionated by stepwise or gradient elution chromatography to separate inositol phosphates and other organic P components. Total eluted phosphate, not necessarily all inositol P, obtained by the Caldwell-Black procedure was 37.0 to 74.4 [mu]g/g of soil for the Ah horizons and 40.8 to 95.8 [mu]g/g of soil for the Bm horizons. Since the amount of "total" organic P content of these soils depends upon the method used, it is difficult to report eluted phosphate as percentage of "total" soil organic P. However, using the values considered to be representative of these chernozemic soils, the percentages were 19 to 21 and 22 to 29 for the Ah and Bm horizons, respectively. Eluted phosphate values of 14.5 to 41.9 and 14.3 to 18.4 [mu]g/g of soil or 8 to 12 and 8 to 11% of the "total" soil organic P for the Ah and Bm horizons, respectively, were obtained by combining the procedures of Cosgrove and Anderson. The combined procedure gave good, sharp separations, and 7 components were observable in all elution chromatograms. The 1st 300 ml eluted contained the bulk of the organic P extracted, none of which released inositol on hydrolysis. The remainder of the inositol phosphates eluted was not more than 1 to 4% of the "total" organic P.