OF INDUSTRIES. 37 



times when Russia was known as an exporter 

 of raw wool are thus irretrievably gone.* 



In machinery works no comparison can even 

 be made between nowadays and 1861, or even 

 1870. Thanks to English and French engineers 

 to begin with, and afterwards to technical pro- 

 gress within the country itself, Russia needs no 

 longer to import any part of her railway plant. 

 And as to agricultural machinery, we know, from 

 several British Consular reports, that Russian 

 reapers and ploughs successfully compete with 

 the same implements of both American and 

 English make. During the years 1880 to 1890, 

 this branch of manufactures has largely developed 

 in the Southern Urals (as a village industry, 

 brought into existence by the Krasnoufimsk 

 Technical School of the local District Council, or 

 zemstvo), and especially on the plains sloping 

 towards the Sea of Azov. About this last 

 region Vice-Consul Green reported, in 1894, as 

 follows : " Besides some eight or ten factories 

 of importance," he wrote, "the whole of the 

 consular district is now studded with small 

 engineering works, engaged chiefly in the manu- 

 facture of agricultural machines and implements, 

 most of them having their own foundries. . . . 



* The yearly production of the 1,037 woollen mills of Russia 

 and Poland (149,850 workpeople) was valued at about 

 25,000,000 in 1910, as against 12,000,000 in 1894. 



