130 On the Tchornoi Ztm, 



a taste for good farming, he is endeavouring, with the aid of his 

 very intelligent agent, M. Brummer, and by the example of 

 model farms, to lead the people to use manure and eat potatoes, 

 a root generally al^horred by the Russian peasant. Turnips or 

 other green rotation crops being also unknown in the interior of 

 Russia, I have little doubt that, with an improved system like 

 that proposed and put in practice by M. Davidof^ the agricul- 

 tural products of Russia might be doubled. 



It is not in my power to give an exact return of the crop yielded 

 by the black earth, nor can I refer my readers to Schnitzler's 

 Statistics of Russia, without cautioning them against what I presume 

 to be an error, when that author states, that in good seasons this 

 black ground, in the government of Tambof, returns from 10 

 to 15 for 1, and in other years from 7 to 10 for 1.* With a 

 knowledge of the treatment which this soil undergoes, such esti- 

 mates must be overcharged, if viewed as average returns. More 

 recentlv, indeed, the Baron A. von Meyendorf has prepared an 

 useful statistical map, not yet published, in which the whole of 

 Russia in Europe is divided into three regions — of forest, corn, 

 and steppe. lie also states that the agricultural region affords 

 20,000,000 of hectares of wheat ; but I may observe, that the 

 amount of this quantity which proceeds from the black earth 

 cannot be known until its limits are defined. Nor would it have 

 given a fair idea of the productiveness of this soil to have simply 

 noted down the returns at this or that spot, where the plough had 

 been long at work, and no manure used. The true test would 

 be to show the amount of produce when the black earth is first 

 changed from a state of steppe or grass to an arable condition. 

 Eager as the Russian cultivator is to convert such lands, there are 

 still very wide tracts of Southern and Eastern Russia, and on the 

 flanks of the South Ural, where no plough has yet broken in 

 upon this fine virgin soil, and where it still is loaded with the 

 richest crops of grass. 



3. Chemical composition. On fracturing a hardened lump 



* The mode of computing the fertility of a soil by the return from a given 

 quantity of seed, which is commonly used by foreign writers, is very falla- 

 cious, as it depends, in a great measure, on the quantity of seed sown on a 

 given space. If a sack of wheat be sown broadcast on an acre of land, and 

 the return be 5 quarters, this will be only 10 for 1 ; but if o pecks be dib- 

 bled, and 5 quarters reaped, v.'hich is not uncommon, the return is no less 

 than 32 for ] : yet the fertility of the soil is not in that proportion. In the 

 rich black earth a smaller quantity of seed is required ; and, supposing 3 

 bushels sown per acre, an increase of 15 for 1 would only give 4 5 bushels — 

 no very extraordinary crop for such land, in a climate peculiarly suited to 

 the growth of wheat; and 10 for 1 would only be 30 bushels per acre — no 

 very great average. There may, therefore, be no error in the statement of 

 the return of the black soil of Tambof.— W, L. Rham. 



