22a 



GENERAL AGRICQLTUllAL NOTES. 



[Dec. 1894. 



Wheat growing in Eussia. 



The Consul General of the United States at St Petersburg 

 has taken considerable pains to secure trustworthy information 

 as to the probable extension of the wheat area in southern 

 Russia during the next two or three years. An inquiry on the 

 subject has been made by the heads of the departments of the 

 Russian Ministry of Agriculture, and the result of this in- 

 vestigation is a report to the effect that it is absolutely impossible 

 to make any definite estimate as to the future development of 

 wheat growing in the empire. There are^ it appears, so many 

 adverse forces at work that it is considered doubtful if there 

 will be any increase whatever in the acreage under the cereal 

 in question during the next few years. In many instances, the 

 soil is said to be so much exhausted that agriculturists have 

 been advised to rotate the wheat crop less often than has been 

 the custom in recent years. Again, it is claimed that the prices 

 realised by the farmers have been of late very discouraging to 

 them. During the last few years, especially, the discrimination 

 in import duties against Russian cereals by Germany and 

 Austria has tended to produce an unwholesome eftect on Russian 

 agriculture. But now that Russian grain is admitted on an equal 

 footing with that of the most favoured nations, it is hoped that 

 a stimulus will be given to the wheat-growing industry. It is 

 feared, however, that the method so long in vogue amongst 

 Russian farmers, of mortgaging grain to speculators or middle- 

 men, will do more injury to the farming industry than will be 

 offset by the advantages given to Russia under the new Russo- 

 German treaty. 



Agricultural Labour in September and October. 



The October number of the " Labour Gazette " contains the 

 usual monthly report by Mr. Wilson Fox, the Agricultural 

 Correspondent of the Labour Department, upon the j)osition of 

 agricultural labour during the previous month. In this report 

 the following statement appears, showing the average earnings 

 per month of 26 days, of regular and extra farm labourers over 

 20 years of age employed in harvest work in different districts 

 of England during the corn harvest of 1894. 



The results are not put forward as necessarily typical of the 

 whole but as true of 68 farms from which exact information 

 was obtained. It should be noted that the earnings stated are 

 cash payments, exclusive of all perquisites. 



