68 SIBERIA 



The Barnaul and Altai regions, in particular, have 

 increased their output enormously. In 1899, Obi 

 Station, or Novo-Nikolaevsk, which serves this dis- 

 trict, only despatched six truck loads, containing 

 738 cwts., while, in 1902, the export amounted to 

 995 loads, or 161,000 cwts. Altogether, between 

 three and three and a half million sterling worth of 

 butter is now exported annually from Siberia, which 

 is more than double the value of the total quantity 

 of wheat exported in 1900, the year of the last 

 good harvest. 



The following facts go to prove that there are 

 good grounds for my assumption that much larger 

 quantities of butter will be produced in Siberia in 

 the immediate future. In the first place, the industry 

 provides the peasant with an easy source of revenue 

 through the sale of milk to the dairies, which, in 

 their turn, are able to do good business by con- 

 verting it into butter. Cattle -rearing is general 

 throughout Siberia, on account of the abundance of 

 rich pasture land and cheap and plentiful fodder for 

 the winter months. Owing to the cost of transport 

 cattle fodder cannot, at least under existing con- 

 ditions, be profitably exported. For this reason it 

 will continue to be cheap within the country, and, 

 by its cheapness, permit the Siberian peasant to 

 maintain his stock of cattle. In the southern steppe 

 districts individual families own, on the average, five 

 horses, three cows, and about a dozen sheep each ; 

 but in the butter-producing districts the number of 

 cows kept Is considerably greater. At a rough 

 estimate the number of cows owned in Siberia at 

 the present moment is about 25,000,000. The breed 

 of cattle presents no remarkable features. The 

 animals are of average size, dark brown in colour, 

 and when I saw them, towards the end of the winter 

 season, appeared to me to err on the side of lean- 



