Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/372

356 closely as was any serf, can the peasant continue to cultivate the land. As every year does not produce a full crop at remunerative prices, it is rare to find farmers free from debts, with the coming crop already mortgaged to the factor in return for past favors.

Although rye is the great cereal consumed in Russia, wheat is also in demand at home. A short crop or a prohibition of import into a market is reflected in the domestic position of that crop. The mere fact that more than one half of the year's product is exported would explain the sensitiveness of Russia to conditions affecting supply and demand. From 1872 to 1880, when importing countries of Europe were obliged to look outside of that continent for supplies, Russia's yield of wheat did not grow as rapidly as seems to have been warranted. The backward and adverse seasons, following one another in almost unbroken line, discouraged an extension of area under wheat, and directed attention to the coarser and hardier grains more generally consumed throughout the empire.

The year 1880 stands out as one of manifold misfortune and disaster to agricultural Russia. The winter of 1879-'80 was of unusual length and severity, and lasted so far into the spring that the food for cattle was exhausted, and large numbers died of starvation. Storms of hail and rain caused great destruction, and the appearance of beetle and cattle plagues added much to the loss and suffering of the population. Had not the Government intervened, with supplies of grain for food and seed, and with public works undertaken for the relief of the starving, a famine of portentous proportion and permanent results would have been experienced. Want and suffering led to a veritable epidemic of diphtheria, "which carried away almost the whole child population of large villages." It was significant that this economic misfortune led to a social change of some moment. "The landed proprietors of the country (around Odessa) are, almost to a man, bankrupt and ruined, and the real property of the country is speedily passing into the hands of the Jews, who manage to make money from it where others starve. They divide the land into holdings, which they let to the peasants, and make a very handsome income of it."

It is remarkable how regularly the wheat production of Russia has fallen short. Beginning with 1880, already given, the next approach to failure was in 1886, with a crop of 157,000,000 bushels; and again in 1891, when 163,500,000 bushels only were gathered. Every fifth year is thus marked, and it is in these exceptional years that the real strength of the Russian wheat interest is to be measured. The year 1891 stands prominently as the year of famine (année de disette).

In the fall of 1891 Russia took the somewhat unusual step of