612 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



Competition from Russia. — Although the tables show that Prussia supplies 

 Great Britain with a larger amount of wheat than Russia, yet the Prussian ex- 

 ports are grown chiefly in Russia, in its Polish provinces. These are regarded 

 as the best wheat-producing regions in the world, and they lie in the west of 

 Russia, near to Prussia. 



Referring to these imports from Russia, the Mark Lane Express says : 



"Russia has displayed a great tendency to increase; and probably, if the Russian Empire 

 was in a more tranquil and satisfactory state, socially, financially, and politically, the strides 

 made would be more rapid. Let the steam-plough once get to work, and the great plains of 

 southern Russia must pour an immense quantity of cereals upon the European markets." 



The " great plains" here alluded to are the Russian steppes, or prairies. A 

 German writer, who has travelled through them, thus describes them : 



"What a prospect! The sun's mighty ball had just appeared on the horizon, and the 

 steppe extended, endless and immeasurable, in all directions." 



And an English Avriter says : 



"The whole of southern Russia, or, as it is more frequently called. New Russia — as it is 

 the latest acquisition of the great Czaric empn-e — must have, once on a time, been one huge 

 lake, whose eastern and western shores rose in the Hindukush mountains and the Carpathians. 

 When this mighty mass of water broke its way out, it left behind a mass of slime, formed of 

 decayed organisms, which now forms the celebrated Tchernozon — the inexhaustible black 

 earth, which lies upon a mumular limestone at a depth varying from a few inches to fifteen 

 feet. It is this land which supplies the greater portion of Europe with cereals without any arti- 

 ficial help." 



It is here that the steam-plough may be so advantageously introduced, for 

 these vast fertile plains have neither tree, nor bush, nor rock -to obstruct it. 

 These plains, however, are subject to greater climatic extremes than our north- 

 west — to more intense droughts in summer, and more terrible snow-storms in winter. 



Heretofore Russia has made but little progress in agriculture, for its agri- 

 cultural laborers were serfs. Of a population in 1858 of 61,129,480, twenty- 

 two and a half millions, or nearly thirty-seven per cent., were serfs ; and of 

 these, 20,150,231 were attached to the land — that is, sold and transferred with 

 it. There were but 106,897 proprietors of serfs, so that there were 211 serfs 

 to each one of them. Progress in agriculture might as readily be found among 

 the slaves of the south as among a people thus held in bondage. But about 

 two years ago the present Emperor of Russia abolished serfdom, and gave power 

 to the freed serfs to purchase and hold lands. The progress now making in 

 Russian towns in the establishment of schools points to the coming changes 

 in agriculture. And recently he has abolished it in the Polish provinces. On 

 the 15th of April every peasant in them was not only freed, but made the 

 owner of all lands, and buildings thereon, which he cultivated. 



With these recently awakened motives to agricultural improvement, the vast 

 and productive plains of southern Russia and the Polish provinces must com- 

 mence that progress alluded to by the Mark Lane Express, by the introduction 

 of improved common ploughs, harroAvs, and drills, of the steam-plough, the 

 reaper, and the thresher; and by the gradual making of railroads, for in these 

 plains there are no obstructions to render them costly. Doubtless it will be 

 many years before this improvement can materially affect our exports of wheat 

 to England, for, as stated in the last report, Avith regard to cotton, it is not 

 production alone that gives a nation a foreign market, but its own ability to 

 consume what that market may have to offer in payment. So long as the 

 United States are superior as a consumer, it can regulate the conditions of mu- 

 tual trade. But still Russian consumption, too, Avill increase with its progress in 

 agi-iculture ; and even as it now is, the tables of English imports of wheat show 

 how great is the amount of wheat Russia, directly and indirectly, sends to 

 Great Britain. Political convulsions may retard Russian progress, and general 

 European wars may continue our supremacy, but an expectation of these should 

 not divert our minds from the development of that market which is our best 

 and most reliable one — the home market 



