390 



Reports on Foreign Crops. 



The yield of other cereals was below the average. The 

 shortage, as compared with the average for the five preceding 

 years, is estimated as follows : — Rye, 2,523,000 cwts.; barley,. 

 i>375>ooo cwts. ; buckwheat, 177,000 cwts. 



The whole quantity of cereals yielded in Poland in 1897 

 was 4,744,000 cwts. under the average for the last five years. 



In the Cis-Caucasus, viz., in the Kuban, Tersk, and 

 Stavropol regions, the general result of the yield of the crops 

 was below the average, that of spring-sown grain being 

 '^n particular unsatisfactory ; all the crops, taken together 

 produced 13,690,000 cwts. less than the average j^ield of 

 the preceding four years. 



From the foregoing it appears that the eight principal 

 grain crops of European Russia, inclusive of the Northern 

 Caucasus and the Cis- Vistula provinces, yielded nearly * 

 150,000,000 cwts. below the average. The poor, deficient 

 harvest of grain in 1897 was moreover attended in the black- 

 soil zone by a rather scanty crop of potatoes and roots. 



The deficiency of the crops of the present year is reckoned 

 as being somewhat less serious than that of 1891, the famine 

 year, and approaches that of 1880, which was also one of the 

 unsatisfactory harvest years. AVith the exception of these 

 two years, the deficiency of the harvest of 1897 is the 

 most consider^lble that has occurred during the last twenty 

 years. 



The total estimated yields of rye, wheat, autumn and 

 spring" sown, and oats in 1897, in the whole of European 

 Russia, including Poland and the Cis-Caucasus, is given as 

 follows : — 



1 



Cwts, 



Quarters. 



Rye 



Wheal, autumn sown - - - - - 

 Do. fiprins:^ sown - . . - 

 Oat5 - - - - - - ' - 



299,382,000 

 49,582,000 

 101,681,000 

 163,140,000 



69,855,800 



11,569,133 

 23,725,566 

 58,563,076 



