RUSSIA. 



or batteries on wooden carriages. Thefe are defigned to 

 keep the tributary tribes in awe, and the neighbouring No- 

 mades from the borders. Oftrogs, or houfes furrounded 

 with a palifade of upright pointed bauks, are fituated either 

 in towns, where they ferve as prifonsfor criminals, or foli- 

 tarily, in various parts of the country, for the fame purpofes 

 as the fortrefles. The parifhes, or church villages, are fome- 

 times very extenfive ; containing 500 or even 1000 and more 

 farms, and from three to feven churches, many of them 

 brick buildings, markets, and trafficking places. Large 

 villages' are frequently called flobodes, but many flobodesare 

 lefs than church villages ; the houfes are ranged in ftraight 

 itreets, and the (Ireets moilly laid with timbers. 



Of the nations, fays Mr. Tooke, who have followed 

 agriculture from time immemorial, though in various ways, 

 and with different fuccefs, the principal are the Ruffians, 

 the Poles, the Lithuanians, the Lettes, the Finn;;, and 

 Efthonians. The ftate of agriculture in all countries mult 

 depend on the nature of the foil and climate, as well as on 

 the induftry of the inhabitants. With this view of Ruffia. 

 the moll northern and eartern diftricts of the empire, of 

 the former, particularly in Siberia, are totally unfit for 

 every kind of economical culture. The 60th degree of 

 latitude may be regarded as the boundary beyond which no 

 agriculture is pra&icable. The repeated attempts that 

 have been made about Okhotfk (between 59° and 6o° N. lat. 

 and 160° E. long.), and Udlkoy-oftrog (55 20' N. lat. 

 and 150 40' E. long.), in the government of Irkutfk, 

 (hew, that the culture of corn will never be introduced to 

 effect ; and even in Kamtfchatka, where the fouthernmoft 

 cape runs out to 51 3 N. lat. limilar trials have been made 

 with very poor and precarious effects. Admitting, therefore, 

 the 60th degree of latitude to be the general boundary 

 of the foil fufceptible of culture to the north, we may infer, 

 that the Ruffian empire contains about 162,000 fquare 

 geographical miles of land totally unferviceable to the 

 purpofes of agriculture. Accordingly the circles in the 

 governments of Olonetz and Archangel have no agriculture, 

 and even in fome diftricts of Vyborg, St. Peterfburg, 

 Novgorod, Vologda, Perm, and Viaetka, it is attended with 

 almoll infuperable, or at lealt deterring difficulties. In 

 fome alfo of the fouthern diftricts of Caucafus, Saratof, 

 Ufa, Kolyvan, Ekaterinoflaf, and Taurida, the foil is 

 fo poor, that the natural impediments can perhaps never be 

 entirely furmounted. To the fertile regions belong mod 

 of the governments of the middle, and feveral of the northern 

 tracts ; but the belt and molt productive foils are chiefly 

 found in Little Ruffia, Kazan, Simbirfk, Kharkof, Kurfk, 

 Orel, Nifhnei-Novgorod, in the fouthern part of Taurida 

 and Caucafus, in the newly-acquired portion of the Polifh 

 Ukraine, and particularly alfo in fome of the Siberian pro- 

 vinces. The great fertility of the diftricts bordering on 

 the Volga, the Kama, the Dnieper, the Terek, and the 

 parts about the Euxine, has been long experienced. More- 

 over, in the territory of Krafnoiarfk, a circle-town of the 

 government of Kolyvan, between the 55th and 56th de- 

 grees of N. lat., the fertility of the foil is fuch, that no 

 inftance has occurred of a general failure, and that it is a 

 very ordinary harveft, when the fummer rye yields 10-fold, 

 the winter corn 8-fold, and the barley 12-fold. It is ufual 

 for the wheat only in bad years to yield the fixth grain, 

 and the oats give an increale rarely ffiort of 20-fold. In 

 confequence of this exuberance, provifions are here in great 

 plenty, and probably in no province of the empire at fo low 

 a price. When Pallas was at Krafnoiarik, a pood of rye- 

 meal fold for 2 or 3, and 1 a pood of wheaten flour for 4^ or 

 5 kopeeks ; a whole ox was bought for 1 1 ruble, a cow 



for a ruble, and a good ferviceable horfe for 2 or 3 roblej 

 at moft ; fheep and hogs fetched from 30 to 50 kopeeks 

 a-piece. And though in 25 years that have elapfed fincc- 

 that period an alteration has taken place, yet this country 

 is ft ill one of the cheapell, as well as one of the richeti 

 and moft plentiful of all. 



The implements of husbandry, without which no great 

 progrefs in the culture of the foil can be expected, are the 

 moft fimple and artlefs that can be well imagined. 



In fuch a ftate, and with fuch inltruments, we need not 

 wonder that agriculture is negligently and badly conducted, 

 and yet we may well be furprifed, that the country fo 

 managed fhould yield fo confiderable a produce ; the bounty 

 of nature fupplying the work of fkill in moft of the pro- 

 vinces of middle and fouthern Ruffia. Moreover, in the 

 provinces lying in the Baltic, in the White-Ruffian govern- 

 ments, in the Polifh Ukraine, and even in proper Ruflia, 

 on the eftates of noblemen who carry on the farming bufi- 

 nefs with fome degree of care, much greater pains are 

 bellowed, and in general more" ingenious implements are 

 ufed. It would lead us too far to give an account oi 

 the practice of hufbandry either in the northern or fouthern 

 provinces of Ruffia ; yet, in fpite of all the defeats of Ruf- 

 fian agriculture, its products are fo numerous and im- 

 portant, that they not only fupply the home confumption. 

 but conftitute by far the moft confiderable article of ex- 

 portation. The corn moft generally cultivated in Ruffia. 

 and in thofe tracts of land that do not lie farther north than 

 the 60th degree of latitude, is rye: wheat is more culti- 

 vated in the middle and fouthern governments ; in the 

 government of Ekaterinoflaf is cultivated the " Arnautan" 

 wheat, which yields a yellowifh flour, and which produces 

 in good years 15 corns above the fowing. Turklfh wheat, 

 or maize, is railed on the confines of the Terek and ii 

 Taurida. Barley is alio a confiderable produce of govern- 

 ments in which wheat fucceeds, and oats alio arc cultivated 

 for the confumption of the people in meal for porridge. 



Of the four kinds of corn now enumerated, Ruffia 

 annually exports a confiderable quantity, efpecially from 

 the Livonian ports. The Ltvonian corn is faid to keep 

 longer than that of other countries, not to need fuch frequent 

 turning, and likewife to yield more flour. In 1793 thefe ex- 

 ports amounted, in corn and meal, to the value in wheat, of 

 1,490,000; in rye, of 1,379,000; in barley, of 236,000; and 

 in oats, of 17,000 rubles. The other corns cultivated for 

 home confumption, but not for exportation, are millet, fpelt or 

 bear-barley, buck-wheat, manna, or teltucafluitans, growing 

 almoft every where in Ruffia, on meadow-grounds that are 

 overflowed, particularly in the governments of Riga, Pfcove, 

 Polotfk, Novgorod, Tver, Smolenfk, &c. and rice. Po- 

 tatoes are cultivated only in a few governments, and chiefly 

 among foreign colonilts. Grades, and fodder of all kinds, 

 every where abound in the Ruffian empire ; and vegetables, 

 for the ufe of manufactures and commerce, are very abun- 

 dant, fuch as hemp, of the produce of which the export, in 

 1793, amounted to upwards of 8,808,000 rubles ; without 

 including the hemp-oil. Flax of the belt kind, and moft 

 in quantity, is cultivated in the governments of Vologda, 

 Pfcove, Novgorod, Riga, Mohilef, Tver, Polotfk, Visetka, 

 the confines of the middle Volga, and in the parts about 

 the Oka and Kama. Both the common and the Siberian flax 

 are often found wild, the former in the Iteppes, about the 

 northern Ural, the latter on the fhores of the Volga, near 

 Tzaritzin, and in other places. Among the plants grow- 

 ing wild, and yielding fibres like flax or hemp, is alfo the 

 common and the Siberian ftinging-nettle (urtica dioica and 

 cannabina), which are found plentiful on the Uralian 

 3 mountains. 



