To delineate the soil-water content in layers as thin as 0.1 cm in the upper centimeter of a field soil, a simple, easily constructed soil sampler was used. Samples were taken every 20 min during one day of soil drying after sprinkling the soil with 0.6 cm of water. The soil in this top centimeter dried fairly uniformly, with the 0− to 0.1-cm layer drying from 0.202 to 0.036 cm3cm−3in 8 hr. The 0.8− to 1.0-cm layer dried from 0.238 to 0.152 cm3cm−3in the same period. With the techniques and tools described herein, no difficulty was encountered in distinguishing the soil-water content of one layer from another.