160 THROUGH RUSSIA ON A MUSTANG. 



past, when a slim gentleman in knee breeches, long 

 hair, and with a big sunflower in his button-hole, 

 emerged from the fogs of London to create a passing 

 furore in America in favor of the floral monarch of the 

 Little Russian steppes. 



The sunflower crop is one of the best paying in 

 Russia. A good crop is worth, as it stands in the field, 

 ioo rubles a dessiatine, or about $25 an acre. The 

 seeds are sold by the farmer for one and a half to two 

 rubles a pood. Then the merchants retail them for 

 four rubles a pood, and at about every street crossing 

 in Russian provincial cities are stands and peddlers 

 with baskets, selling to the passers-by the product of 

 the big sunflower. In the field the sunflowers are 

 sowed in rows like the " drilled corn " of the Kansas 

 farmer, and, like corn, are cultivated and hilled up 

 with shovel plows. 



The peasants of Little Russia seemed to be even 

 more superstitious than the moujiks of the northern 

 forests. Once we halted for noon at a little village 

 when the men were all away at work. The fields be- 

 longing to a village are often several versts away. So 

 uneventful is the life of these people that the ap- 

 pearance of a couple of strangers, on horseback, dressed 

 differently from themselves, is an event of portentous 

 possibilities. 



The woman from whom we demanded shelter and 

 feed for our horses crossed herself several times and 

 turned pale. She opened the gate, however, and 

 brought us hay. Afraid to approach us, she placed 

 the hay inside the gate and retreated. We went into 

 the house to see about getting a samovar to make tea. 



