188 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



The high road of Russia is the Volga, a vast traffic being 

 carried upon the slow-moving, turbid river. It is perhaps owing 

 to that traffic that better agricultural conditions obtain in the 

 Volga region ; with increasing herds of cattle, agriculture is 

 advancing and the conditions are becoming more stable. Deeper 

 ploughing, the use of iron ploughs and grain drills are all 

 making for better harvests. 



The most important town in East Russia is Samara, the 

 centre of the greatest grain-producing district in Europe. Day 

 and night loads of wheat, oats and barley arrive there from 

 the remote parts of the vast cultivated area surrounding the 

 town. There is great activity in the docks and warehouses; 

 barge-loads of grain are towed up the river for exportation 

 from St. Petersburg and Riga. 



A large proportion of the Russian-grown tobacco comes 

 from the province of Samara but the quality of the product is 

 not very good. 



It is instructive to visit these more remote regions, to see 

 how great is the area of land already cultivated and the almost 

 equally great area not yet opened up to crops. The harvest is 

 enormous because of the greatness of the area occupied, not 

 because of large yields. As a rule the crop is small ; expressed 

 in bushels per acre the average is : 



ii 



When these figures are compared with the following data 

 recording harvests from some of the Rothamsted plots it will be 

 seen how closely they approach the yield from unmanured land : 



Unmanured. Dung-. Complete artificial. 



Average for five years .12 36 39 bushels of wheat 



Already Russia exports more wheat than the United States, 

 so that when better methods of agriculture find place and when 

 some few more successful seasons enable the farmers to pur- 

 chase machinery and artificial manure, it is probable that 

 Russia will be able to meet all the European requirements 

 in the way of grain. 



The severity of the winter is not felt by the young corn, 

 because the deep snow which covers the land protects the 

 crops from wind and frost. It is surprising to find that the 



