] 08 SIBERIA. 



in Unit or Tubol.sk. The cost of caniage would hn too yieat, aud accoidiugiy extieiuii want 

 Kiiiy b(! oxporieiiceil in one t'oveniment simultanfjously with an extraordinary .surplus iu another. 

 Add lo tills till! complete absence of organized credit in Siberia, whether for general purposes 

 or in releronce to grain, and tlii; fact that the peasant makes his chief outlays in antumn 

 wlion grain is cheap, while in years of scarcity he must buy it in spring when it is dear, 

 it follows tlial tile peisant is obligeil to throw the more grain on the market the cheaper it 

 is, and to buy in propoition to its dearness. From all this results one more charateristic fea- 

 ture of Siberian farming, tlie extraordinary want of fixity in the prices of grain, rising iu 

 times of scarcity higher than anywhere in European Russia, and falling in good years to 

 an extremely low level. 



In the sketch made in the preceding pages of the position of agricultural production, 

 original Siberia, or the four governments with the adjacent teiritories of Yakutsk and Trans- 

 baikalia to the east, were mainly in view. Ol'tlif two lust-named territories the former, as far 

 as the beginnings of agricultiiie exist there, presents a complete agreement with the pails 

 of the Tobolsk government adjacent to tlie northern boundary of grain raising. Transbaikalia 

 with insignificant differences resulting from its more steppe like character and better climate, 

 approaches tlie conditions of the conterminous Irkutsk government. No special account is required 

 of the conditions of agriculture in those districts of the territories of Akmolinsk and 

 Semipalatinsk where grain is raised without artificial irrigation; they present complete accord- 

 ance with the conditions obtaining in the wheat regions of the Siberian governments, with 

 but one difference, that the lands are here fresher, and therefore their yield is higher and 

 crop failures occur more seldom. 



To complete the picture of agriculture it is however necessary to add a few words 

 on its position in localities where it is placed in conditions absolutely different from those 

 tlescribed above, In the Zaisan district of the Semipalatinsk territory and in Semirechia, as 

 well as in the Amour-Ussuri region. 



Alike in the Zaisan district and Semirechia, agriculture, as was indicated above, is 

 only possible with artificial irrigation. The fields are here intersected by great irrigating 

 ditches, aryks, from which when ploughing, little runlets are led in all directions by the 

 s k li a, thus distributing the moisture equally over the whole field. In the Zaisan district 

 the irrigated fields are sometimes also manured, and the water is let on first before ploughing, 

 and then, during the growth of the plant, according to the weather, from twice to four times 

 more. As a rule the crops are watered first thirty days after sowing, again fifteen days 

 later, and a third time after the lapse of forty days more. After eight crops the field requires 

 either a three years rest or manuring. During the whole eight years however it is sown with 

 one and the same kind of grain, wheat, rye, millet or oats. An alternation of crops, aud 

 even a mere change to another kind of grain, are not practised here, because the seed, falling 

 during the operation 'of harvesting, springs up and would only spoil the next crop. In the 

 Semirechensk territory, the irrigated laud in consequence of the hot climate yields two crops 

 a year; the winter field sown with wheat and barley ripens at the end of May, and when 

 harvested is sown with a second crop mash, a small pea, millet or carrot, more rarely 

 kunzhut, poppy or lentil. The second crops ripen and are removed in the autumn of the 



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