Ch. ix. Siberia, Northern and Southern. 173 



is occasioned in a great degree by the savings 

 from the high wages of common labour. The 

 command of thirty or forty pounds at the least, is 

 considered as necessary to enable an active young 

 man to begin a plantation of his own in the back 

 settlements. Such a sum may be saved in a few 

 years without much difficulty in America, where 

 labour is in great demand and paid at a high rate; 

 but the redundant labourer of Siberia would find 

 it extremely difficult to collect such funds as would 

 enable him to build a house, to purchase stock and 

 utensils, and to subsist till he could bring his new 

 land into proper order and obtain an adequate 

 return. Even the children of the farmer, when 

 grown up, would not easily provide these neces- 

 sary funds. In a state of society where the mar- 

 ket for corn is extremely narrow, and the price 

 very low, the cultivators are always poor; and 

 though they may be able amply to provide for 

 their family in the simple article of food, yet they 

 cannot realize a capital to divide among their 

 children, and enable them to undertake the culti- 

 vation of fresh land. Though this necessary ca- 

 pital might be very small, yet even this small sum 

 the farmer perhaps cannot acquire ; for when he 

 grows a greater quantity of corn than usual, he 

 finds no purchaser for it,* and cannot convert it 

 into any permanent article which will enable any 

 of his children to command an equivalent portion 



* II y a fort peu de debit dans le pays, paiceque la plupart des 

 habitans sont cultivateurs, et elevent eux-memes des bestiaux. — 

 Voy. de Pallas, torn. iv. p. 4. 



