140 Demand for Agricultural Machinery Abroad, [may, 



sanction of the local Government to the establishment of an agricultural 

 machinery depot in the Punjab on somewhat similar lines to the depot 

 established some time ago in the Central Provinces. The local authori- 

 ties are convinced that the demand for such machinery, the practical 

 utility of which has been proved, is likely to be large in the Punjab. 

 It is proposed to charge purchasers 65 per cent, over cost price on sales 

 of machinery stocked, and 2 per cent, on sales bought on specific 

 orders. — (Board of Trade Journal, April 15th, 1909.) 



Caucasus — H.M. Consul at Batoum (Mr. P. Stevens) reports as 

 follows regarding the opening in the Caucasus for agricultural imple- 

 ments and for machinery (F.O. Reports, Annual Series, No. 4,198) : — 



The Northern Caucasus, being a purely agricultural country, affords a 

 good field for the sale of a variety of agricultural implements. Rostov- 

 on-Don is the centre at which most of the leading British agricultural 

 implement manufacturers are represented, and to which landed pro- 

 prietors in the provinces of Kuban and Ter and the government of 

 Stavropol proceed in order to purchase the implements they require for 

 working their lands. Threshing machines and engines, as well as 

 machinery of smaller dimensions ordered by farmers in the districts 

 referred to, are shipped from the United Kingdom to Novorossisk, where 

 they are discharged for conveyance by rail to their destination. 



In addition to locally manufactured implements, such as ploughs, 

 a good deal of larger agricultural machinery, of German make, has 

 recently been introduced into the district ; it is sold at a lower price, 

 and on more convenient terms of payment, than British manufacturers 

 are prepared to accept, but the work executed by the German article 

 is said to be not so satisfactory as the work turned out by British-made 

 machinery. 



The use of agricultural implements in the Trans-Caucasus is not 

 so general as it is in the Northern Caucasus. In the western and 

 south-western portions of the Trans-Caucasus, the land to be cultivated 

 lies principally on steep slopes of hills and in marshy country. Want of 

 knowledge on the part of the natives as to modern methods of working 

 the soil, their impecunious condition, and their unwillingness to en- 

 deavour to improve the land they cultivate, retard the development of 

 the sale of improved agricultural implements on this side of the main 

 Caucasian chain, although in the Eastern Trans-Caucasus and in 

 Central Asia a limited business in agricultural implements of British 

 and local make is annually carried on through agencies of the Rostov 

 firms domiciled at Baku. 



Demand for Agricultural and Dairy Machinery. — Reports on the 

 demand for agricultural machinery appear in the U.S. Consular 

 Reports as follows :— Russia and Siberia (No. 3352, 3355, 3359); 

 Canada (3360) ; Austria Hungary (3377); Chili (3380); Norway and 

 Sweden (3282); and Turkey (3392). The Reports as to Russia and 

 Siberia are furnished by a Special Agent of the U.S. Department of 

 Commerce, who is investigating the opportunities for American trade 

 in agricultural machinery. 



