15 



unsystematic farming, to the general withdrawal of capital from the land for invest- 

 ment in manufacturing enterprise, under the aegis of a protective tariff, and to 

 the general deforestation of the country, in great part to provide fuel for railroads 

 and protected enterprises. The fatal consequences of this general deforestation 

 are now generally appreciated, the shrunken state of the once noble rivers of 

 the country, and growing aridity of the climate, affording evidence that can 

 neither be overlooked or gainsaid. 



The regions of the mighty rivers, the Don, Volga, and the Dneiper, the great 

 arteries of Russia, were formerly fringed with wide-spreading forests, along their 

 whole upper and middle courses, which sheltered their sources and tributaries 

 from evaporation throughout the year. These forests have now for the most part 

 disappeared. Mile after mile the traveler sees nothing but low scrubs and 

 melancholy stumps in unbroken succession ; the " Mother Volga " grows yearly 

 shallower ; the steamers find scarcely seven or eight feet of water in mid-stream, 

 and the ferries pursue their snake-liks course from bank to bank in search of the 

 ever-shifting channel. The Don, with its tributaries is choked ; the sources of 

 the Dneiper creep downward and its chief tributary, the once noble Worskla, 

 with a flow of some 220 English miles, is now dry from source to mouth. 



The city of Poltawa lies on its banks, and it was at its mouth that the 

 Swedish Army surrendered to Peter the Great. This stream, which fertilized a 

 broad region, supporting a numerous population, exists no more not temporarily 

 run dry, but with all its springs exhausted, so that in future it may be stricken 

 from the map. Of the Bitjug, another river in the Don region, the upper course 

 has wholly disappeared valley and bed are filled to the bank with sand and earth. 

 As if by magic, wide, fertile lands are buried under the sands, and whole villages 

 desolated. " There has been," says Wiestnik Jewropy, " an unparalleled revolu- 

 tion of natural conditions, which threatens a great part of the country with 

 the heat and aridity of the Central Asian steppes. The present condition of 

 our black earth region is so serious, and its future so dangerous, that it cannot 

 possibly escape the serious attention of the Government, the scientist and the 

 husbandman, to whom the further development of the situation is perhaps a 

 question of life and death." 



There is perfect unanimity in attributing the threatening catastrophe to the 

 denudation of the forests. Innumerable factories sprang into existence, and, in 

 the absence of any systematic provision for coal-supply, they were erected in the 

 heart of the forest, and, after having consumed all the available fuel within easy 

 distance, their plant was actually sometimes transferred to fresh fields. Thus 

 originated the system of wholesale destruction, which was liberally furthered by 

 the network of railways built to maintain their communication with the great 

 marts of commerce and provide generally for the transport of produce. For the 

 past forty years thousands of locomotives and factories have been run almost 

 wholly with wood without a thought being given to any provision for reproduc- 

 tion. The extension of the railways afforded an opportunity for extracting colossal 

 fortunes from the " worthless " forests. These were the manufacturers' views 

 also ; so the fate of the Russian forests was sealed. " The machines have 

 devoured the woods." 



The recently passed law for the protection of the forests has come fifteen, 

 twenty, or twenty-five years too late to avert the destruction of the agricultural 



region. 



And the Government and people of Russia had already been warned. Forty- 

 two years ago that is, shortly after the famine of 1847-49 we find the following 

 in a letter from the Charkowski Government to the Imperial Society of Econo- 



