126 NOTICES RELATING TO AGRICULTURAL ECONOMY IN GENERAT< 



them. Thus not only was' there no improvement: there was retrogression. 

 Even the amount of 1907 has not been reached of late years. 



Grain brought 

 Year to the Elevators 



1912 5,807,800 puds 



I913 6,440,300 ) 



IQI4 8,446,500 >i 



These figures shows indeed some progress, but 11,107,000 puds, the 

 amount of 1897, has not since been equalled. 



To make the elevators more effective for purposes of trade, and to 

 heighten their activities as regarded both quantity and quality of grain, 

 the government decided to establish its own sj^stem of elevators by means 

 of the .State Bank. Hence arose : 



in 1912 3 elevators having a storage capacity of. . . 2,500,000 puds 



" 1913 6 " " " " ... 5,700,000 



" 1914 9 " " " " ... 5,050,000 



'' 1915 12 " " " " ... 7,500,000 



In addition in these same 3'ears the State Bank acquired three eleva- 

 tors having a storage capacit}' of 850,000 puds from the Rjasan-Ural Rail- 

 way Company, and in the beginning of 191 6 one elevator having a storage 

 capacit}^ of 1,000,000 puds (Moscow). In the beginning of April 1916 

 the State Bank erected an elevator able to receive 600,000 puds. Thus 

 altogether there arose thirty-five elevators having a total storage capacity 

 of 23,200,000 puds. In addition thirty-four were being built and were 

 more or less completed. It was decided on 17 June 1916 to erect for the 

 grain districts of the north east and the south west and for the black earth 

 district seventy-seven elevators and granaries able to receive 62,750,000 

 puds. Through the medium of the State Bank it has also been planned 

 to cover Siberia with a system of elevators, placing in Novo-Xikolajevik 

 (Co\-ernment of Tomsk,) where the trade in grain is ver}^ great, an eleva- 

 tor to hold 2,000,000 puds, and at the station of Kulomsino, at the junc- 

 tion of the Omsk-Jekateripiburg and Tcheljabinsk - Irkutsk railways, 

 one to hold 1,500,000 puds and more. 



The existing granaries in .Siberia numbered seventy-seven in the mid- 

 dle of July 1915 — they are said since to have increa.sed — , had a storage 

 ca]ntcity of 6,704,000 puds, and were subject to the Colonization Adminis- 

 tration. 



The activities of the elevators of the State Bank cannot be measured 

 by their financial results, as can those of a private company, for they are 

 proportionate not to profits but to the efforts made to organize the home 

 trade in grain on a regular plan and to direct it to right paths. Financial 

 points of view should be diregarded especially at the present time, in which , 

 all elevators have been placed under military direction. Nevertheless in 



