38 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW 



hot east winds burned up everything, is only 

 partially correct. For several years preceding, the 

 same conditions prevailed though to less degree, 

 so that the poor peasants, disheartened and 

 impoverished, were unable to cope with the grim 

 destroyer when the almost total failure of 1891 

 befell them. The normal state of these people is 

 so close to the verge of starvation, having nothing 

 laid up for days of misfortune, that a single sea- 

 son's crop failure absolutely prostrates them. 



The loss of their horses, cows, and sheep, through 

 their inability to feed this stock, worked a double 

 injury, inasmuch as it not only deprived them of 

 the assistance of these animals in farm work, but 

 also of the manure so essentially necessary for 

 maintaining the fertility of the soil. At the best 

 of times, by reason of insufficient fertilizing, the 

 peasants have been compelled to let the land lie 

 fallow for from three to five successive years to 

 prevent entire exhaustion of the soil. Mr. James 

 Besant, a devoted worker for relief in the Province 

 of Samara, said the loss of horses was immense 

 and the death-rate of cattle was increasing, so that 

 out of a million in the province not over four hund- 

 red thousand would survive. Most of the unfortu- 



