Agricultural Population of Russia. 505 



As a result of the adoption of these modified rations the 

 health of the fowls is said to have improved, and the produc- 

 tion of eggs to have increased ; a reduction of the quantity 

 of food by one-third was followed by an output of nearly one- 

 third more eggs. In the year when three rations daily were 

 given 218 hens yielded 11,452 eggs, and in the following year 

 when the modified rations were provided 204 hens produced 

 14,357 eggs. 



In the first three months of 1897 the eggs produced by the 

 204 hens receiving two rations daily were: January, 1,540; 

 February, 1,351 ; and March, 1,668. 



The Economic Condition of the Agricultural 

 Population of Russia. 



The distress caused in certain districts of European Russia 

 by the partial failure of the harvest of 1898 has evoked from 

 the Minister of Finance an interesting review of the general 

 economic condition of the agricultural population of the 

 Empire. The harvest of the past year in Russia in Europe 

 was slightly below the average, but better than that of 1897^ 

 although the results were very unequal in different regions. 

 In certain groups of provinces, particularl3r in the basin of 

 the Volga and the Kama, the scarcity of produce was even 

 more pronounced than in the previous year, for not only were 

 the winter and spring sown grains a failure — in some localities 

 the harvest did not yield the equivalent of seed sown — but 

 the exigencies of the situation were rendered more embarras- 

 sing by a great dearth of straw and hay, so that the main- 

 tenance of live stock was also a difficulty. In the greater 

 number of the remaining provinces of the Empire the results 

 were, however, more satisfactory ; the harvest was approxi- 

 mately an average one, and in the North-West the returns 

 were even considered to be " good." But notwithstanding the 

 relatively satisfactory results of the harvest as a whole, the 

 year 1898 must have been, it is stated, a disastrous one for the 

 famine-stricken regions. 



In addition to the relief afforded to the suffering popuJa- 



