OPENING UP LAND FOR CULTIVATION 1595 



taken to check its progress. During the period 1904-1909, 46ooo'"acres 

 not till the early years of of the present century that active measures were 

 were brought under cultivation and in 191 3 a special Government Service 

 was organized to deal with the question. The province of Astrakan 

 was put in charge of a chief forestry officer and divided into six dis- 

 stricts in each of which a sub-officer was appointed to superintend the 

 work of reclamation. The seven officers were university men and had a 

 staff of 23 working foresters under their orders. All work was carried out 

 and financed on one of the three following systems : 



1) The State to supply all technical advice and the material for 

 seeding or planting, but all the labour to be provided by the landlord. 

 Areas dealt with annually : about 1300 acres. 



2) The State to supply technical advice, and to pay half the ex- 

 penses of the working foresters required to superintend the work, and 

 to make an allowance of 5^^ per day towards the housing and keep of each 

 labourer. The population to provide the men and to pay the other half 

 of the foresters' expenses. iVrea dealt with annually : 1300 to 2600 acres. 



3) The land to be temporarily made over by the landlord to the 

 Ministry of Agriculture. The vState to do the planting and to pay 90 

 per cent of the total expenses, the balance being paid by the Administra- 

 tion of the Kirghiz. Contracts of this kind were begun in 1908 and 

 by 1913 some i 300 000 acres has been planted. 



Everj^ year the forest officers make a report of the work done in their 

 districts as well as recommendations for the further development of the 

 scheme. 



Methods employed for fixing the surface of shifting sands. — Experi- 

 ments in Nortern Astrakan have shown that Salix acutifolia Wild, can 

 have an excellent binding effect on the surface of sands. Cuttings taken 

 from the tips of the branches are merely placed in a plough furrow. The 

 method is simple and inexpensive, costing about 6s per acre and at the 

 end of three or four years not only is the capital expenditure repaid, but 

 the land may have risen in value to the extent of another 6s per acre. 



In the southern part of the province, where the sandy area is greatest, 

 reclamation is carried eithr by planting cuttings of Salix acutifolia and S. 

 caspica Pall (i) (" nar>'m-tala ") or young plants of Pterocaccus aphyl- 

 lus Pall (2) (" diuzgun ") and CalUgonum spp. (3) (" Kandym ") or by 

 use of herbaceous crops. The latter is the more common method, as 

 planting is comparatively expensive (£ 3 to £ 5 per acre), and require be- 

 sides some sort of protection from the wind, such as parallel wind screens 

 about 9 ins. high and 13 ft. apart costing £ i los to £ 3 per acre. Plan- 

 tations too, require after cultivations in the form of hoeings and weedings. 

 Herbaceous plants on the other hand are not only less costly to grow, but 



(i) According to Visotzki, in Rulletm of Applied Botany No. lo-ii, 1913, p. 1240. 



(2) Cf. Agricultural Encyclopacdta, Vol. IX. p. 482. Petrograd 1905. Publishers, A. E. 

 Devrien. 



(3) Cf. Id. Vol. X, p. 143. Petrograd 1907. 



