of factories for canning fruit and for making jam and pickles.
Transcaucasia supplies, chiefly from the government of Erivan,
some 12,000 tons of raw cotton annually. The tea plant thrives
and is being planted fairly rapidly on the Black Sea littoral in
Transcaucasia.
Live-stock are diminishing in numbers all round: in the case of horses, from 21 per 100 inhabitants in 1882 to 11 per 100 inhabitants in 1904; of cattle, from 31 in 1851 to 23 in 1882 and 27 in 1904; sheep, from 56 to 46 and 41 in the years named respectively; and pigs, from 13 to 9 and 10 respectively. Recent investigations in the government of Moscow have revealed that 40% of the peasant households possessed no horses, and similar inquiries in 41 governments elicited the fact that 28% of the peasant households were without horses, although of the total number of horses in the country 82% belong to the peasantry. The animal commonly met with is small and possessed of very little strength; the best are those of Poland, the W. governments and the S. steppe country. Both the horses of the Cossacks and the bityug race of S. Russia are fine animals, and those of the Kirghiz, though not big, are famous for their endurance. Finland ponies are exported in large numbers. The best bred races of cattle are those of Poland, the W. provinces, Little Russia and the far N. (Kholmogory). Of the 55 million sheep kept in Russia only about 15 millions belong to the fine merino breed, and these are pastured chiefly on the Black Sea steppes. Modern dairy-farming is only just beginning in Russia, but butter is being exported in increasing quantities to W. Europe, including Great Britain. Poultry-farming is being more extensively engaged in, and vast numbers of eggs are exported.
Agriculture stands at a low level in Russia. The landowners are often poor, and suffer from want of capital and lack of enterprise. The peasantry are impoverished, and in many parts live on the verge of starvation for the greater part of the year. While the methods of agriculture have generally shown little, if any, advance, the population is increasing rapidly; and although since the emancipation of the peasants the average annual export of cereals has increased from less than 1½ million tons in 1860 to over 6 million tons in 1900, this result has been attained largely by the repeated cropping to exhaustion of the soil. Thus the cultivators, whether noble or peasant, have not profited much from the change in their economic circumstances brought about by the social emancipation of 1861. Agriculture suffers from the widespread poverty of the agricultural classes, from the taxation which weighs unjustly upon the peasantry, from their lack of education, their technical ignorance and national indolence, and from the absence of those progressive institutions (e.g. co-operative buying) by means of which the peasantry of Denmark have so wonderfully improved their position. As illustrating the general impoverishment of the Russian peasantry, it may be stated that the arrears of taxation owed by them have increased enormously since 1882, when they amounted to £2,854,000, until in 1900 the total amount was put at £15,222,000. And, strange to say, the heaviest arrears are due from the fertile black earth region of S. Russia, namely, 80% of their total indebtedness. Within recent years, however, some efforts have been made both by the Ministry of Agriculture and by the more enlightened of the zemstvos to improve the education of the peasantry, but the progress achieved has been small. The methods adopted by the zemstvos for improving the condition of agriculture have included the formation of agricultural councils, the appointment of inspectors, and the founding of museums, meteorological stations and depots for the sale of agricultural machinery. Measures are being taken by the zemstvos to increase the very low productivity of the forests. These cover a considerable area, as may be seen by the following table for 1904:—
| Region. | Square Miles. | Percentage of Total Area. |
| European Russia | 706,500 | 39 |
| Poland | 11,500 | 23 |
| Finland | 79,000 | 55 |
| Caucasia | 29,200 | 16 |
| Total | 826,200 | 39 |
The distribution of forests is very unequal, the area covered by them in the various governments varying from 70% of the total area in the Ural governments of Perm and Ufa, and 68% in Olonets and Archangel, down to 2% in the S.E. The state is the chief owner of forests (almost exclusive owner in Archangel), and owns no less than 289,226,000 acres in European Russia and Poland (235,000,000 acres of good forests), while private persons own 171,800,000 acres, the peasant communities 67,250,000 and the imperial family 22,400,000 acres.
Sericulture, which was in a flourishing condition in the 'sixties both in Caucasia and in S. Russia, was reduced to a very low ebb, in consequence of the silkworm disease, and was only renewed with any vigour towards the end of the 'eighties. At the beginning of the 20th century it was most developed in Transcaucasia (Kutais, Elisavetpol), and extended into N. Caucasia. Sericulture is taught in a number of special schools and in a great number of village schools. Attempts are being made to re-establish the silkworm industry in S. Russia and in Poland. Altogether raw silk and silk yarn to an annual value exceeding 1½ millions sterling are exported from Russia.
Notwithstanding the wealth of the country in minerals and metals of all kinds, and the endeavours made by government to Mining and related industries. encourage mining, including the imposition of protective tariffs even against Finland (in 1885), this and the related industries are still at a low stage of development. The remoteness of the mining from the industrial centres, the want of technical instruction and of capital, and the existence of vexatious regulations, aggravated by the disturbed condition of the country, which hinder credit, confidence and enterprise, are amongst the chief reasons for this. The imports of foreign metals in the rough and of coal are steadily increasing, while the exports, never otherwise than insignificant, show no advance. As a producer of iron Russia nevertheless runs France neck and neck for the fourth place amongst the iron-producing countries of the world, her annual output having increased from 1,004,800 metric tons in 1891 to 2,808,000 in 1901 and to 2,900,000 in 1904. The two principal mining centres of European Russia are the Urals, Ekaterinoslav, Kharkov and the Don Cossacks territory. The Ural industry is the older, and is still conducted on primitive methods, wood being largely used for fuel, and the ore and metals being transported by water down the Kama and other rivers. The minerals chiefly produced in the Urals are iron, coal, gold, platinum, copper, salt and precious stones. The production of pig-iron nearly doubled between 1890 and 1900, increasing from 446,800 tons in the former year to 801,600 in the latter; but since 1900 the output has declined, the total for 1904 (inclusive of Siberia) being 644,000 tons. The amount of iron and steel produced in the Urals is not quite 20% of the total in all European Russia and Poland. The output of coal in the Urals is, altogether, less than 3% of the total for all the empire and 4% of the output of European Russia (exclusive of Poland) alone. The annual increase is but small, 261,300 tons having been the total in 1891, and 517,000 tons the total in 1904. Gold has been mined in the Urals since 1820; but since 1892 the output has fallen off very considerably. Whereas in the latter year the yield amounted to 395,500 oz., in 1900 it was only 291,250 oz. No less than 96% of the world's supply of platinum comes from the Urals; but the total output only ranges between 10,000 and 16,000 ℔ annually. The copper industry has greatly declined since the 18th century; whereas then it kept 20 smelting works employed, now one-tenth of that number can hardly be kept going. The output for the year is less than 4000 tons. At one time all Russia was supplied with salt from the Urals, but at the present time the output is extremely small, less than 350 tons annually. Salt has been mined there since the 16th century.
The mining region of S. Russia is much more important. It is of comparatively recent foundation (1860), and is carried on largely with French and Belgian capital, with modern appliances and with modern scientific knowledge. Out of an average of some 2,700,000 tons of pig-iron produced annually in the whole of the Russian empire, 61.5% is produced in the basin of the Donets, and out of an average of 2,160,500 tons of worked iron and steel 48.7% are prepared in the same region. The principal consumer of this iron and steel is the government, for its railways, locomotives, wagons, arsenals, artillery, &c. The output of coal in the Russian empire has increased from a total of less than 300,000 tons in 1860 to 3,280,000 in 1880, 15,878,200 in 1900, and 18,620,000 tons in 1904. Of these totals something like 70% is produced in the S. coal-field. Coal takes, however, an altogether secondary place as a fuel in Russia; wood is much more extensively used, not only for domestic, but also for industrial purposes. It is estimated that for domestic purposes nearly 150,000,000 tons of wood are consumed every year, while the steamships, railways and factories consume another 20 or 25 million tons. At the same time large quantities of petroleum refuse are used as fuel in the railways of S.E. Russia and Caucasia, and on the steamboats of the Volga system. For the petroleum industry and the mining of the Caucasus region, see Caucasia. Mining in Poland and Siberia are more fully discussed under those headings.[1]
Since the time of Peter the Great, the Russian government has been unceasing in its efforts for the creation and development of Manufactures and petty industries. home manufactures. Important monopolies in the 18th century, and prohibitive import duties, as well as large money bounties, in the 19th, contributed towards the accumulation of immense private fortunes, but manufactures have on the whole developed but slowly. A great upward movement has, however, been observable since 1863. About that time a thorough reform of the machinery in use was effected whereby the number of hands employed was reduced, but the yearly production doubled or trebled. Manufacturing industry in the modern sense can hardly be said to have existed in Russia
- ↑ See Russian Journal of Financial Statistics, in English (2 vols., St Petersburg, 1901).
