62 THE FARMER'S OUTLOOK 



Caucasus. Perhaps the most noticeable change 

 in Russian agriculture of recent years has been the 

 increase in sugar-beet cultivation, especially in 

 the South-Western and Central provinces. The 

 introduction of a root crop is a distinct advance 

 in Russian agriculture reducing the bare fallow, 

 still extensively resorted to as a means of resting 

 and cleaning the land. Other important crops are 

 sunflower seeds, linseed, and rape, also cotton 

 grown in Central Asia and trans-Caucasia. 



A noticeable feature of transportation in Russia 

 is the use made of rivers, lakes and canals as 

 means of communication, the total water mileage, 

 including Finland, amounting to 147,000 miles. 

 The canal barges carry some 400 or 500 tons and 

 the larger barges approximately three times as 

 much. A portion of the wheat destined for ship- 

 ment from Baltic ports is transhipped at Rybinsk 

 from the large barges on the Volga and com- 

 pletes the journey, some five hundred miles to St. 

 Petersburg by canal. Russia as a source of our 

 wheat supplies, as we have seen, is a very 

 variable factor. This is partly due for reasons 

 already stated, and partly to the fact that Rus- 

 sian exports are sent more across her European 

 frontiers than to us. — Further reference to this 

 point is made later on in reference to butter 

 exports. — We are not likely to receive increased 

 supples from this source on an average, as 



