TEMPERATE SURPLUS-PRODUCING REGIONS 91 



felt in this industry in Siberia than has been the case in North and: 

 South America. 1 There is no doubt that if extensive improvements 

 are made in both the internal and the external means of transport, 

 the effect will be to reduce the relative disadvantage as compared 

 with other cereal-producing regions ; if these improvements are 

 directed to canals and the shortening of railway routes, as has been 

 suggested, bulky goods such as cereals may gain a greater reduction 

 in freight charges than butter, which must always travel through 

 on refrigerated cars by rail as much as possible. Moreover, there 

 is no likelihood of a market for Siberian grain in Russia, which 

 is itself a great cereal country, while there may possibly be some 

 market for Siberian butter. 2 The means of transport, therefore, 

 control the extent of cereal cultivation in Siberia. Nevertheless, 

 Western Siberia is well adapted to this branch of agriculture, and 

 one writer at least, believes that it will be the leading one for a 

 long time to come. 3 The fertile area of the country is so vast and 

 the population relatively so small, that there is room for a great 

 expansion in both cereal cultivation and animal industries. Up 

 to the present the latter have had the advantage in net prices. 

 Whether the same conditions will hold after the conclusion of the 

 European War depends upon a number of factors in combination 

 ocean freights, relative demand, and means of internal transport. 

 It will be some time before the fertility of Siberian soils is 

 seriously affected by continuous cropping. When that stage comes, 

 animal industries will be found the readiest means of saving the 

 land from exhaustion, since fertilisers cannot bear the cost of trans- 

 port over great distances. In recent years Western Siberia has 

 been more and more devoted to dairy farming and the production 

 of butter 4 owing to the advantages already described, and this is 

 the best guarantee for the preservation of soil fertility. The in- 

 dustry has also become established east of the Obi as far as Kras- 

 noiarsk on the Yenesei and southwards for many hundreds of 

 miles from the main railway line into the Altai region. 5 With such 

 widespread foundations already laid, the dairying industry is not 

 likely to languish, even if cereal cultivation becomes profitable in 

 the future, for three reasons. In the first place, any improve- 

 ments in transport are likely to develop new and more remote 



1 The cost of transporting and marketing grain from Western Siberia to 

 Hull was apparently upwards of twice that on grain from Western Canada 

 or Western United States to Liverpool. More than half of the price realised 

 for Siberian grain in England was swallowed up by these charges. 



2 Dairying in Russia is still an undeveloped industry, and some of the 

 centres of population are remote from the dairying districts or are reached 

 from them only with great difficulty. Under existing transport conditions 

 Russian butter may in the future be exported from certain districts in Russia, 

 while Siberian butter is being consumed in others. Politically and commerci- 

 ally Siberia tends to be a province of Russia. 



1 Clemens Brandenburger, article above quoted. " For at least a century 

 to come the production of grain will dominate Siberian agriculture." 

 4 F. Nansen, Through Siberia, p. 298. 

 * S. Turner, Siberia, p. 50. 



