42 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW 



protective tariff has not availed, as in the United 

 States, to build up manufacturing industries. 

 They have them in the large cities, but they are 

 very few in comparison with the population. In 

 the villages I saw none, not even a tinsmith, black- 

 smith, or potter, absolutely nothing in the indus- 

 trial line outside of their primitive farming. And 

 in this they were truly antiquated. Their plow, 

 called a soktra, was the same old wooden soil 

 scratcher that was in use a thousand years ago. 

 It was made of wood with a little sharp spade- 

 point of iron. Against all modern agricultural 

 implements and labour-saving machines the Rus- 

 sian peasant sets his face like flint. Attempts to 

 introduce them have been met with determined 

 resistance. In all the region where famine pre- 

 vailed I saw no truck patches, vegetable gardens, 

 nor fruit trees, nor any markets nor stores for the 

 sale of the products of these necessities for com- 

 fortable living. 



Thus it may be seen that the sad condition of 

 these people is not to be reckoned solely as the 

 result of a single year's calamity but rather as the 

 outcome of a combination of evils of which ignor- 

 ance is the chief, a culmination of long-existing, 



