FORESTS ON THE DNIEPER. 181 



besides, in the crown villages they have been planting with 

 considerable success. But if we reckon the planting of 

 trees in this country from the sowing of acorns in the 

 neighbourhood of Nicolaiev, by the order of Prince 

 Potemkin, in Taurida, then it will appear that the 

 planting of forests has since then made little progress ; and 

 at the present time in the three governments, Kherson, 

 Ekatherinoslav, and northern parts of Taurida, not 

 more than 10,000 desatins have been planted. During 

 the time of serf labour many occupied themselves with 

 this on private estates, but have given over doing so now, 

 commercial calculations having put a stop for many years 

 to the slow process of forest planting. 



' In the meantime the planting of forests in this 

 country has brought to it a practical and very palpable 

 benefit. In this respect the first place is occupied by the 

 small forest near Odessa, on the Peresif, planted in 1831 and 

 1834 on 130 desatins of salt soil, to defend Odessa from the 

 wind, which brought clouds of sand into the town. This 

 planting was made on the idea of the former chief of 

 Odessa, Leoshin,and it is known by the name of the Leoshin 

 plantation. Since then these plantations have increased, 

 and one must remark that planting of trees on the 

 Peresif, composed of sea drifts of sand and closely packed 

 shells, with a salt soil, and want of water, was difficult, 

 but it proved to the inhabitants of Odessa the possibility 

 and utility of plantations, and from that time the suburbs 

 of Odessa, little by little, have begun to clothe themselves 

 with green trees ; but they are very sickly, and short lived, 

 because the heat, dust, hardness of soil, want of water, 

 and frequent droughts, do not give the trees a possibility 

 to develop themselves properly, and only those trees which 

 are protected from all sides, at least from winds, the 

 drying nature of which forms the greatest danger to 

 vegetation, grow pretty satisfactory. 



' The Leoshin plantations had the same importance as 

 the great Anadol plantations in the government of 

 Ekatherinoslav ; in both cases they were designed to prove 



