458 EUSSIA IN EUEOPE. 



Industries. 



In Russia the manufacturing industry is still but feebly represented, and its 

 main resources continue to be drawn from the chase, the fisheries, agriculture, and 

 stock-breeding-. Entire populations are still composed exclusively of fishers, 

 hunters, nomad grazers. The Russian fisheries are by far the most productive in 

 Europe, although relatively to the population greatly inferior to those of Norway. 

 The Caspian fisheries alone yield at least double of the produce derived from the 

 English, French, and American fleets on the bank of Newfoundland.* The chase 

 is important only in the thinly peopled regions of the north, and even here it has 

 much diminished during the last two centui'ies. Certain species, whose skins were 

 highly prized, have disappeared altogether, though the Ziryanians of Vologda alone 

 still bring yearly to market at least 400,000 of the common furs. Beasts of prey, 

 so destructive to game, are still numerous in many places ; bears in the woodlands, 

 wolves everywhere, attacking herds and flocks, and in hard winters even man 

 himself. The packs are still supposed to number about 175,000, annually 

 destroying 180,000 cattle, 560,000 sheep, 100,000 dogs, representing a total value 

 of £2,500,000, or a revenue of over £13 per wolf ! The number of human beings 

 devoured by them amounts to about 125 — in 1875 as many as 161. 



Agriculture. 



Of all European states Russia is by far the largest corn producer. The yield 

 was till recently in excess even of that of the United States, but she now ranks 

 second amongst the corn-growing countries of the world. t Some districts, such 

 as the Chernozem, seem destined to become one vast corn-field ; but the processes 

 are still very defective, and in the south speculators often rent large tracts of 

 Crown lands, on which they raise two or three crops of Avheat, followed by two 

 exhausting growths of flax. Were the product of each acre as great in Russia as in 

 GreatBritain, the total yield would be raised from 224,000,000 to about 1,700,000,000 

 quarters, a quantity suflicient for 500,000,000 human beings. Yet the crops 

 often fail, owing either to drought or too much rain, or to the locusts, so feared, 

 especially in Ukrania. On these occasions, while distress prevails in some districts, 

 others are often sending their corn to the foreign market, as happened during the 

 great famine of Saratov in 1873. This is due to the poverty of the small farmers, 



* Yearly value of the Russian fisheries, £4,068,000, thus distrihuted : — 

 Caspian and its affluents . . £2,400,000] White Sei and its affluents . £160,000 



Sea of Azov „ . . . 640,000 Black Sea „ . . . 96,000 



Baltic . „ ... 200,000 I Lakes . „ . . . 400,000 



t Comparative tahle of cereal crops in various countries : — 



United States (1869— 78) .... 222,286,000 qrs., or 5 3 per inhahitant. 



llussia (average between 1870 — 74) . 



France (1874) 



Germany (1873—77) . . = . 



Austria-Hungary (1869 — 76) 



Great Britain (1875) .... - 



