126 fJintiiiA. 



As to the rivorsido localities, tLoro tLc priucipal activity is connectad with the fiiru- 

 ishirif,' tlu3 stoaiuor.s with wood fuel ariuiiaiiy consuming on the Obi alone enormous quantities. 

 Some spots situati,'i| u|) stnium ahovt; the more considerable towns, hew and make up into 

 lal'ls both tiiiilier nwl I'ui'l foi iIk' latter. Thus 'J'iiimen gets nearly ail it.-> timber from the 

 soutli(!ni part of the Tiirinsk district, 'J'obol.sk from volosts of the .same district and from 

 that of Tobolsk, lying along the rivisr Tavda. 



Every peasant hews for himself, while the large orders are undertaken by more or 

 less extensive firms. 'J'lie latli;r employ a mass of worknuMi eithei on hire or by special 

 contracts. 



Household industries in Siberia do not pniseut any great variety. The most important 

 branch, employing the greatest niimliei of bauds and alTonling the population the largest 

 eandngs, comprises various forms of wood industry, partly in satisfaction of the needs of the 

 local peasantry, partly of those of the carrying trade occupying such a prominent position 

 in Siberia. Individual ku stars are met with everywhere. More or less extensive 

 groups of kustar population are concentrated mainly in spots where there is easy access 

 to the raw material, and a ready sale for the manufactured articles. The largest of 

 these groups are situated around the towns of Tinmen, Tomsk and Irkutsk. The first embra- 

 ces a considerable part of tlu; Tiiimensk and Turinsk districts. The articles here made are 

 carts, shovels, wooden vessels, simple furniture, and other things used in the life of the peas- 

 antry, to which must be added wood fibre, mats, wheels, trade sledges and appliances used 

 in fitting out caravans. Articles belonging to the first class are hawked about the villages 

 and sold to the peasants, while those belonging to the second class find a market in Tinmen 

 among the carriers employed in the inland trade. The needs of the latter traffic employ most 

 of the energies of the kuslars in the Tomsk region. They make sledges, carts, wheels, axies, 

 yokes, thills, horse collars, tar, troughs for the horses, charcoal for the smithies, all of which 

 are sold in the bazaar in Tomsk. The same goods predominate in the kustar industry of the 

 Irkutsk region. Here, as in the Tomsk region, various kinds of wooden vessels, furniture, 

 articles made of birch bark and some kinds of turned goods are produced, all constituting 

 objects of every-day use among the peasantry. 



It thus appears that the forest yields the Siberian peasant the most varied earnings, 

 and is the chief source whence deficits on account of agi'iculture and cattle rearing are made 

 good and the peasant's budget balanced. Unfortunately however the forest wealth of Siberia 

 is in a lamentable state. The exhaustion of the supplies of game and fur animals was re- 

 ferred to above, but the forests themselves in Siberia are being destroyed exceedingly rapidly, 

 considerably more rapidly indeed than might be expected with the actual insignificant density 

 of the population. Of fine, actually virgin forests, at any rate in the cultivated part of Siberia, 

 very little has remained, -while the southern districts of the Western Siberian governments 

 are already to a considerable extent stripped of trees and are experiencing a deficiency not 

 only in timber, but not seldom also in wood fuel. The cause of this phenomenon lies in the 

 immoderate and disorderly fellings, destroying many times more than the annual addition 

 permits, and in the forest conflagrations extending over hundreds and thousands of square 

 versts. 



