CHAPTER II 



THE SIBERIAN RAILWAY AND THE DAIRY INDUSTRY 



Financial prospects of the great railway — Its indirect value 

 to the country — The cultivation and export of cereals — 

 The first Siberian dairy — The Government and co-operative 

 dairy-farming — State assistance to immigrants — Professors of 

 agriculture — Dairy schools — Co-operative dairies — " Artels " — 

 Cattle-rearing — Conditions of land tenure — Good work being 

 done by the Government — The shifting of the centre of gravity 

 in the butter-producing countries — British firms with branches 

 in Siberia — Methods of working — The British importer ranks 

 first — Horses in Siberia — Butter trains on the railway — Over- 

 sea transport. 



The internal development of Siberia will have to 

 be enormous before the new railway can be imade 

 a success from' a financial point of view, as the 

 cost of construction amounted to more than 

 £78,000,000, while the annual expenditure on the 

 working of the line is nearly £5,000,000. To make 

 the line pay it would have to carry about 10,000,000 

 tons of goods per annum at the present rates, or 

 three times as much as was conveyed last year and 

 the year before. 



The value of the line, however, cannot be estimated 

 by the direct results, as there are numbers of indirect 

 ways in which this gigantic undertaking confers 

 benefits on the country and the people. Grain is 

 the principal article on the list of goods transported. 

 In consequence of bad harvests the quantity of grain 

 conveyed over the line during the last four years 



