Siberian Butter Trade. 



Siberian Butter Trade. 



The Board have received through the Foreign Office a 

 report by Mr. Henry Cooke, Commercial Agent in Russia, 

 giving the following information concerning the export of 

 butter from Siberia, taken from the official " Commercial 

 and Industrial Gazette " of St. Petersburg, of August 2nd, 

 1 90 1 (new style) : — 



Butter making in Siberia is chiefly carried on in the 

 districts along the Siberian Railway between the river Tobal 

 (town of Kourgan) and the Ob (Krivoshtchekova), a distance 

 of 733 miles, or over an expanse of territory of about 150,000 

 square miles, assuming only 66 miles on either side to repre- 

 sent the sphere of influence of the railway. 



Butter production in Siberia by the aid of separators dates 

 from 1893, when the first dairy works of the kind were opened 

 in the district of Kourgan. An agricultural show at Kourgan 

 in 1895 spread the new method of production, while the 

 Exhibition held at St. Petersburg in 1899 , by the Imperial 

 Economic Society brought the Siberian product to the notice 

 of foreign buyers. The use of separators has now extended 

 from the western to the eastern districts, and covered the 

 above-mentioned region. It will, doubtless, soon extend to 

 the whole of the Barnoul, Biisk, and Semipalatinsk districts. 

 The old method of disposal, once a year only, through the 

 medium of the autumn fairs, chiefly at that of Ishim, has been 

 practically abandoned both by Siberians proper and by 

 Russian settlers. 



The chief impulse favouring the change was the opening 

 of offices by foreigners for the purchase of butter in the 

 centres of production themselves, first at Kourgan, then at 

 Omsk, and now at other considerable butter exporting 

 stations. And, as a natural consequence of these offices buying 

 butter not on credit but by settlement on delivery, or buying 

 on commission, with advances of 90 per cent, or the local 

 cost, there grew up a tendency to form village dairy associa- 

 tions, this being the case more especially in the Omsk region 

 during last winter. The Moscow Imperial Agricultural 

 Society came to the assistance of the new industry by opening 



