352 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



141, of which 94,188,750 were assigned to Russia in Europe, and 

 the density of the population liad risen to fifty-one to the square 

 mile. The returns of Kussia in Asia are naturally imperfect, but 

 the census of 1897 gave 23,052,000 souls, and the density of popu- 

 lation about four to the square mile. For the whole empire the 

 density is fifteen souls to the square mile. This low figure is due to 

 Siberia, where only 1.2 marks the population to the square mile, and 

 to central Asia, which gave only 5.6 to the same territory. Poland 

 is the most densely settled (one hundred and ninety-two to the square 

 mile), and Caucasia does not greatly difller from the average for 

 European Russia (53.3 to the square mile). If these figures be com- 

 pared with the returns of the United States census it will be seen that 

 European Russia has more than twice the density of population of 

 the United States (21.3); that Poland is as thickly settled as New 

 Jersey (193.8), and that JSTew Mexico equals Siberia in sparseness of 

 inhabitants. 



The estimates of land under cultivation in European Russia have 

 become more correct of late years, through the intelligent applica- 

 tion of statistical methods by the Government. In 1850 it was be- 

 lieved that about eighteen per cent of the area (exclusive of Poland 

 and Finland) was under cultivation, and of this cultivated portion 

 nine acres in every ten were under grain. Accepting these ofiicial 

 figures, the area devoted to grain would have been 219,569,000 

 acres. From 1850 to 1860 the cultivated ground increased by one 

 tenth, and nearly the entire increase was devoted to grain. The 

 social conditions introduced by the emancipation of the serf checked 

 this development after 1860 in the northern and central government 

 of the empire, but stimulated the settlement and cultivation of the 

 more southern provinces — the black-earth region. The progress as a 

 whole was small, for the gain of one region hardly overcame the loss 

 of another, and in 1870 the figures gave an increase of only 1.5 per 

 cent in the area of plowed land over the returns of 1860. After 

 1870 the rate of progression again rose, and in 1880 nearly ten per 

 cent more land was in cultivation than in 1870. Again accepting 

 the ofiicial figures, the area of tilled land was about 540,000,000 

 acres in 1880. 



In that year nearly sixty per cent of this area was in the " black- 

 earth " zone, a A'ast and rich arable plain, extending across the 

 empire from the southwest corner (Podolia) to the Ural Mountains, 

 and even reappearing in Siberia. This is one of the largest sections 

 of fertile lands on the globe, and its pre-eminence arises from the 

 decomposition through centuries of accumulated steppe grasses, and 

 the shelter afforded by the outlying forests. " It owes its name to 

 a layer of black humus, varying in thickness from, on the average. 



