1 86 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



Between Rshef and Moscow there are extensive pine forests, 

 girt about and intermingled with beautiful groups of silver birch 

 and thorny acacia trees. The country is slightly undulating 

 and terminal moraines form quite a feature of the district. 

 Considerable quantities of apples are grown and cattle are to be 

 seen in great numbers, presumably because of the market for 

 meat and dairy produce afforded by Moscow. Apart from this 

 cause, the Government and the Provincial Councils have done 

 much to foster and develop this side of farming. 



The remarkable and elegant city of Moscow, of which all 

 Russians are justly proud, possesses a great number of educa- 

 tional institutions. One of the most important is the large 

 Agricultural College, which is situated amid delightful sur- 

 roundings in a beech wood some little distance from the city. 

 The College is well attended and although the building and the 

 laboratories are extensive, so great is the bustle and stir that 

 the place seems to be overcrowded. 



Eastward from Moscow a great featureless country is passed 

 through, where neither hedgerow nor tree breaks the monotony 

 of a desolate plain. Generally speaking the soil is light ; it 

 blows about as dust during the dry summer months and after 

 rain makes very disagreeable mud. The ways of communica- 

 tion are far worse than those found in the western provinces ; 

 there are few railways, and scarcely any roads. Irregular tracks 

 connect a village with its neighbourhood and may be seen as a 

 pair of wavy lines stretching across the country. Except in the 

 villages situated nearer to Moscow, the conditions under which 

 the peasantry live are extraordinarily low. In the more remote 

 parts poverty is to be seen on all sides, misery being written 

 everywhere and it is shocking to behold the conditions under 

 which some of the peasants exist. 



The severity of the Russian winter is keenly felt by the 

 inhabitants of this flat unprotected region, where cold, searching 

 wind and snow sweep unmercifully across the plain. It is not 

 until the end of March that the snow begins to melt ; with the 

 advent of April warmer winds rid the earth of the last snow and 

 bring forth vegetation with exceptional rapidity. Cattle which 

 have survived the seven months' trial — poor starved beasts ! — 

 are driven to the grazing land and it is small wonder that the 

 release from winter is celebrated by a religious ceremony. 

 About the middle of April the land is prepared for summer 



