TENURE AND USE OF LAND. 101 



exhausting gi'aiiis are sown, such as wheat, winter and spring rye; towards the end of the 

 period, and upon the stubble fields, such gi-ains as barley and oats. Moreover, at the begin- 

 ning of the period of tillage the land is more seldom left fallow; at the end, more often; 

 thus, at first after every two crops, at last after every single crop harvested. Finally, the 

 duration itself of the periods of tillage for freshly broken lands, that is, such as have never 

 been under cultivation, is in general longer than for lands which have been ploughed before 

 and again broken up after a prolonged rest, as such rest seldom completely renews the fer- 

 tility of the soil. 



Such is the general character of the rest and fallow system. As for its varieties, they 

 are extremely numerous. Siberian farming is distinguished by the absence of all pedantry. 

 Not only every volost or commune, but each farmer independently determines the rotation of 

 crops for every patch of land which he is using, adapting himself to its soil and situation, 

 to the climate and conditions of the market, finally, to his personal means. The number of 

 crops taken from the land during the period of tillage fluctuates between 3 and 4, for poor 

 sour lands, and 25 to 30 for the best chernoziom, and there even exist lands, especially in the 

 southern part of the Tobolsk government, which have been under the plough more than 

 100 years and have never yet been left to rest. The duration of the period of rest varies 

 between 5 and 10, and 25 and 30 years, depending on the one hand, upon the soil conditions, 

 and on the other, upon the degree of exhaustion to which the land has been brought by 

 previous sowings. In some places and on some lands, sowing on the stubble field is a normal 

 occurrence, so that the rotation of crops approaches the rest-three-field type; in other places 

 and upon other lands such sowings form an exception, or are not carried out at all; the land 

 is fallowed after each crop and the rotation approximates to the rest-two-field type, and 

 so on. As to the predominating sorts, in each locality the more exacting grains are to be 

 found on the best lands, and the coarser kinds on the worst. But however this may be, whole 

 districts are characterized by the prevalence now of one, now of another kind of grain. 

 Thus upon the splendid sandy chernoziom of the steppes of the south-western part of the 

 Tobolsk government, and of the agricultural localities of the Akmolinsk territory, as also in 

 the Altai raining district and the southern part of the Yenisei government, wheat predomin- 

 ates, in some places occupying as much as half of the whole area sown, and more. In the 

 central agricultural part of the Tobolsk government, distinguished by the prevalence of 

 sourish soils, the crops are mainly barley and spring rye. Over the whole expanse from 

 Tomsk to Irkutsk the forests and friable chernoziom soils favour winter rye, which only 

 yields place to spring rye in the places stripped of forest. Along the whole line of the Siber- 

 ian tract the largest areas are sown with oats, which here have a certain and profitable sale. 

 Besides the cereals enumerated, there are further sown here and there, millet, buckwheat, 

 peas and potatoes, while of the industrial plants flax is almost universally sown, hemp in the 

 chernoziom localities, and sunflower in the Altai. 



The system of agriculture prevalent in Siberia exhibits the greatest variety not only 

 in space, but in time. With the growing density of the population and the contraction of the 

 land space, the periods of rest of the land are gradually reduced, and the periods of tillage 

 increased. The rapidly progressive exhauslion of the land, resulting from this, it is attempted 



