TENURE AND USE OF LAND. 91 



the northern volosts of the Tarsk district; in the government of Tomsk, the northern border- 

 lands of the Tomsk and Marinsk districts; in Yeniseisk, part of the district of the same name; 

 in Irkutsk, the Tunkinsk country and some other places. This transitional zone is character- 

 ized by the circumstance that agriculture there attains at last a more or less considerable 

 development, while dividing its part as the main source of prosperity with several other 

 industries. Along the rivers everywhere extend great reaches of lands suitable to cereals but 

 their extent is insufficient to occupy the whole labour of the population and completely 

 secure its well-being. At the same time the forests and waters open a wide field to the 

 development of trapping and fishing, the cedar nut industry, the cutting of fuel and the 

 felling of timber and a few household trades. In the population of this transitional zone the 

 Russian peasants are mingled with more or less russified natives, and in the mode of life 

 of both races no substantial difference can be observed. 



Natives, in the main Buriats, still compose a considerable part of the population in 

 those portions of the cultivated zone proper of Siberia lying further to the east, and whose 

 settlement by Russians was accomplished comparatively recently. In the agricultural districts 

 of the Irkutsk government the natives still form about 17 per cent, in the Thansbaikal ter- 

 ritory, 30 per cent of the population ; in the cultivated region of the governments of Yenis- 

 seisk and Tomsk the number of natives is already quite insignificant, while in the purely 

 agricultural districts of the government of Tobolsk they are almost non-existent. 



The chief characteristic feature of the cultivated tract of Siberia consists in the 

 considerable dimensions attained by agriculture and in its predominating importance, as the 

 fundamental source of the prosperity of the population. The average extent of the sown area 

 per household of the rural population, including under this term peasants, natives aud con- 

 victs, according to the latest statistical data, is as follows: 



In the southern districts of the Tobolsk government . . 5.4 des. 

 » » central part » » Tomsk * . . 5.8 » 



» » agricultural region » » Irkutsk » . . 5.4 » 



and to every 100 souls of the actual population there is an area sown with grain, as 



below : 



In the southern districts of the Tobolsk government . . . 104 des. 

 » » central part » » Tomsk » ... 87 » 

 » » agricultural region :> -> Irkutsk » . . . 97 ;> 



The relation between the production and consumption of grain varies of course for every 

 volost, and not unfrequently for an individual settlement, in dependence upon the quantity of 

 lands suitable for grain growing and their conditions of soil. Taken as a whole, the agri- 

 cultural region not only supports its population, but yields very considerable surpluses of 

 grain. The sale of these surpluses is the chief source whence the population pays its taxes 

 and satisfies its principal wants. According to the latest data the people of the agricultural 

 districts of the Irkutsk government consume on an average crop not more than about 59 

 per cent of the grain raised; that of the north-eastern corner of the agricultural region of 



