United States or Niue ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In 1890, for example, out of 52 millions, nearly 41 millions, or 78 per cent., fell to the share of the provinces of the Black-earth Zone. In seven of these the average arrears per male, which had been in 1882 only 90 kopeks, rose in 1893 to 600, and in 1899 to 2,200!
The Black-earth Zone, which was formerly regarded as the inexhaustible granary of the Empire, has become impoverished, whilst the provinces which were formerly regarded as hopelessly poor are now in a comparatively flourishing condition. This fact has been officially recognised.
The industry is still only in its infancy. In the Tobol and Ishim plains of western Siberia are the fertile black-earth regions covering twenty-five million acres. As yet, they are sparsely settled, but they are capable of supporting half the population of Russia.
Two Opposite Opinions Difficulties of Investigation The Problem Simplified Direct and Indirect Compensation The Direct Compensation Inadequate What the Proprietors Have Done with the Remainder of Their Estates Immediate Moral Effect of the Abolition of Serfage The Economic Problem The Ideal Solution and the Difficulty of Realising It More Primitive Arrangements The Northern Agricultural Zone The Black-earth Zone The Labour Difficulty The Impoverishment of the Noblesse Not a New Phenomenon Mortgaging of Estates Gradual Expropriation of the Noblesse-Rapid Increase in the Production and Export of Grain How Far this Has Benefited the Landed Proprietors.
The running pond overgrown with reeds and rushes, the favourite haunt of fussy ducks, among whom one may now and then come across a wary 'teal'; beyond the pond a garden with avenues of lime-trees, the chief beauty and glory of our black-earth plains, with smothered rows of 'Spanish' strawberries, with dense thickets of gooseberries, currants, and raspberries, in the midst of which, in the languid hour of the stagnant noonday heat, one would be sure to catch glimpses of a serf-girl's striped kerchief, and to hear the shrill ring of her voice.
Vegetable gardens and berry patches lie near at hand, and beds of brilliant but not rare flowers enliven the immediate vicinity of the house. The estate is large and fertile, though it does not lie in the famous "black-earth zone." This begins a few miles south of it. Plain wholesome food, simple dress, an open-air life without fixed programme, were what we found.
It was therefore necessary, in order to be prepared to follow Maslova to Siberia, upon which Nekhludoff was firmly resolved, to go to the villages and arrange his affairs there. First of all, he went to the Kusminskoie estate, the nearest, largest black-earth estate, which brought the greatest income.
It must be admitted, however, that even in the Black-earth Zone the proprietors have formidable difficulties to contend with, the chief of which are the scarcity of good farm-labourers, the frequent droughts, the low price of cereals, and the delay in getting the grain conveyed to the seaports.
There they have since remained. Their country-houses, if inhabited at all, are occupied only for a few months in summer, and too often present a melancholy spectacle of neglect and dilapidation. In the Black-earth Zone, on the contrary, where the soil still possesses enough of its natural fertility to make farming on a large scale profitable, the estates are in a very different condition.
For the zoo-geographer only three separate sub-regions appear on the East-European plains the tundras, including the Arctic islands, the forest region, especially the coniferous part of it, and the Ante-Steppe and Steppes of the black-earth region.
Word Of The Day