March 1895.] EXTRACTS FROM DIPLOMATIC AND CONSULAR 339 



REPORTS. 



rye accounts for the depreciation in the price of land^in general, it 

 is not sufficient to explain why the depreciation in the Kingdom 

 of Poland has been double that of any other Government in the 

 Empire. 



The proportion of the wheat crop to the rye crop in the 

 Kingdom of Poland is 1 to 3, or approximately the sam« as in 

 the Government of Saratoff, where it is 14 to 42*4. In the 

 Government of Kursk the proportion is 16 to 35, in that of 

 Volhynia 15-4 to 31-5, and in that of Ufa 9'4 to 44-9. But the 

 price of land only fell 15 per cent, in the Government of SaratofF, 

 and 9 per cent, in that of Kursk, while in Volhynia it increased 

 14 per cent., and in the Government of Ufa 38 per cent. It 

 is said to follow, therefore, that the fall in the price of land in the 

 Kingdom of Poland cannot have been caused by any excessive 

 production of rye. 



The soil of the Kingdom of Poland, with only a few exceptions, 

 is mostly of medium quality, but the average yield up to 1889 

 has been 25 per cent, to 50 per cent, higher than in the best 

 districts of the' Empire. This result, it is maintained, can only be 

 due to a more intensive cultivation and to more labour and 

 money spent per unit acre, which is proved by statistics, 

 among others those relating to the number of cattle per acre in 

 the Kingdom of Poland as compared with the other districts. 



The Russian Agricultural Department has divided the whole 

 area of the Empire into eight classes of land, according to the 

 quantity of manure used. The first class comprises land that is 

 not manured at all. On the second to the fifth class inclusive, 

 manure is used to the extent of from -J cwt. to 26 cwts. per 

 acre ; on the sixth from 26 to 39 cwts. ; on the seventh fnmi 

 39 to 65 cwts. per acre ; and on the eighth over 65 cwts. Now 

 nine Governments of the Kingdom of Poland belong to the sixth 

 class, and the Government of Warsaw to the seventh, and yet the 

 price of land has fallen 28 per cent., as stated above. It is 

 concluded, therefore, that there exists a close relation between 

 the capital and labour expended on the land and the fall in the 

 value thereof. That is to say, the more highly cultivated a 

 district has been, the more it has suffered from the crisis. 



The cost of growing wheat in Poland is investigated by 

 reference to the methods of cultivation, the price of land and the 

 cost of labour, with the result that the cost of producing corn in 

 Poland is said to range from 16 to 48 per cent, higher than in 

 Russia. The labour bestowed on every acre of cultivated land 

 is said to be far greater, and the taxation of land from five to six 

 times higher than in all the other corn-exporting districts of the 

 Empire. 



An attempt is made in the Memorial to explain why the agri- 

 cultural crisis in Russia, which began in 1880, has a more acute 

 character in the kingdom than in the other districts, and 

 threatens the ruin of all agriculture in Poland. 



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