THE SIBERIAN RAILWAY 53 



only averaged about 350,000 tons. This is grown 

 in the western regions, in the neighbourhood of the 

 section between Cheliabinsk and Petropavlovsk, and 

 principally in the districts of Ishim and Kourgan 

 of the Government of Tobolsk. Barley and rye are 

 grown in the central parts of the same Government, 

 and oats, which are of very fine quality, in the vicinity 

 of the railway. The Governments of Tobolsk and 

 Tomsk yield about 40 per cent, of the annual total 

 of crops. Beside the Siberian route, grain is trans- 

 ported by the Perm-Kotlas railway to Archangel, 

 and thence abroad; about 25,000 tons being exported 

 in this manner every year. 



One of the most striking direct results of the 

 opening of the western section of the railway has 

 been the exceptionally rapid progress made in the 

 production and exportation of Siberian butter. Prior 

 to 1893 no butter whatever was either produced or 

 exported. The first person in Western Siberia to 

 engage in the manufacture of butter in accordance 

 with European methods was an Englishwoman 

 married to a Russian, whose dairy farm at Cher- 

 naya Rechka, in the district of Tiumen, is to this 

 day a well-known model of its kind. In 1896 this 

 was the only dairy in Siberia. In 1893 a Russian, 

 near Kourgan, opened the first dairy which pro- 

 duced butter for export abroad, but the progress 

 made during the first four years was painfully slow. 

 The manufacture of butter was then taken over by 

 the Government, which granted the dairy farmers 

 a substantial initial subsidy, to which a further grant 

 of £200,000 was added in 1903, for the purpose 

 of assisting the formation of co-operative dairies, by 

 which means it was made possible to produce butter 

 of better and more uniform quality. At present the 

 population is alfflost entirely engaged in agricultural 

 pursuits, the ranks of the workers being constantly 



