268 CENTRAL SIBERIA. 



Siberia, is certain to advance still further in import- 

 ance, especially when the proposed Tomsk-Tashkent 

 railway is taken in hand, and merits a few words of 

 description. 



The surface of the country is varied, a vast level plain 

 constituting the western and northern portions, while 

 on the east and south-east rise ranges of the Altai 

 Mountains. Throughout the lowlands rich black earth, 

 which has proved to be the most fertile soil of Siberia, 

 abounds, and hence doubtless the attraction which has 

 brought settlers to these parts in such large numbers 

 during recent years. For long, attempts were made to 

 protect the Altai lands from the intrusion of immi- 

 grants ; but since 1865, when the district was first 

 opened to colonisation, the influx of settlers has steadily 

 increased, as many as 300,000 being said to have settled 

 in the Cabinet lands of his Majesty within the last ten 

 years of the past century. Agriculture is consequently 

 the predominant occupation of the people, and though 

 only a fraction of the total arable land is sown, a large 

 surplus of grain is available in normal years for export 

 to Eastern Siberia and other parts of the empire. The 

 recent three years' famine caused by drought has there- 

 fore been a severe blow to the prosperity of the country, 

 and though the harvest of 1903 promised to be a fair 

 one, it could only go a part of the way towards recom- 

 pensing the settlers for the heavy loss which they have 

 recently sustained. But later events — the war in the 

 Far East — are likely to bring about a still greater 

 measure of depression, if, as is probable, troops are to 

 be levied in Siberia, a proceeding which, in the opinion 

 of well-qualified judges, would mean the depopulation 

 of whole villages. 



The system of husbandry adopted is characterised by 

 the fallow-land system, and to the eye of the English- 



