# 10 



Russia. — In Russia, agriculture as a whole is in a 

 very imperfect condition. Here and there, especially in 

 the neighborhood of large towns like^ Moscow and St. Pe- 

 tersburg, laboriously and skilfully cultivated fields may be 

 seen, while herds of improved Swiss and short horned 

 cattle are carefully reared on the domains of the rich no- 

 bility. The Emperor also, who knows well the impor- 

 tance of this art to the strength and prosperity of his do- 

 minions, sets an example to his subjects by the efforts he 

 makes to introduce a better system of culture among the 

 serfs on the Imperial estates, by the establishment of 

 schools for the instruction of farmers in art and experi- 

 mental science, and by the maintenance of model farms 

 upon the appanages of the crown. But Russia, never- 

 theless, is half a wilderness. Millions of acres of perpe- 

 tual forest cover rich soils which there are no hands to 

 till. The value of an estate is measured not by the num- 

 ber of acres it contains, but by the number of souls which 

 live upon, cultivate, and are sold along with it. As in 

 the first clearings of a North American wilderness, where 

 land is comparatively worthless, the soil is cropped till 

 it is exhausted, and then new land is subjected to the 

 plough and exhausted in its turn. In no country of the 

 world, with the exception of Northern America, is there so 

 vast a field for the useful emigration of agricultural settlers, 

 as in the mighty Empire of Russia. But languge, and re- 

 ligion and political institutions, oppose barriers which the 

 Saxon, and I may say the Teutonic races generally, feel 

 themselves unable to overcome.* 



* For information on the state of agriculture in Russia, see also a paper 

 by the Hon. Mr. Slocum, in the Transactions of the N. Y. State Agricul- 

 tural Society, for 1848, p. 638. 



