The climatic difference is illustrated more clearly still when we

consider the matter from the climatological side. Voyekov, the great

Russian climato pzeshasiemlogist, expressly the slight cover of snow in

the Ukraine, the relatively high temperature of the warmer periods of

the winter, and the abnormally warm spring, which is due to the

lightness of the snow-cover, which requires only a little of the spring

warmth to melt it. The snow cover of Poland, Lithuania or Northeastern

Germany is much more similar to that of Muscovy than the Ukrainian. The

January isotherms in the Ukraine switch over from the N. to S.

direction to the N. W. to S. E. direction. The isotherm of the typical

Russian winter (January -8 to -10°) avoids the region of the Ukraine

entirely. It is true that the Dnieper and Dniester have the same amount

of ice as the Volga or the Dvina. But here the main consideration

should be the period of freezing; the Dvina is covered over for 190

days, the Volga 160, the Dnieper in the Ukraine only 80 to 100 days,

the Dniester 70 days. These are certainly greater differences. Still

greater differences between the Ukrainian and the Muscovite climates

become evident when we compare the length of the winter, or the time

suitable for work outdoors. In Great Russia this time is at most four

months; in the Ukraine, at least six and a half; and in its southern

borderlands even nine months. Such differences play a great part in the

life of the people. The time of the winter obstructions and enforced

idleness is twice as great in Russia as in the Ukraine. The struggle

with the cold takes on forms in the Ukraine which are entirely

analogous to the Western European forms. In the Muscovite country we

observe polar elements in the winter-life of the people. The Ukrainian

winter does not depress the people, does not bore them to death, but

only steels their bodies in the struggle with the cold and gives them

the desired rest after the summer’s heat. The winter is the time of the

most intensive social life among the Ukrainian peasantry.

The spring of the Ukraine, warm and sunny, has quite a different

influence upon people to that of the cool, damp Russian or Polish

spring. The sunny climate of the spring and the cloudlessness of the

summer have produced in the Ukrainian a quiet, fundamentally cheerful

temper. Yet, we find in him none of the gaiety which is characteristic

of the people of the south as compared with the people of the north,

but rather a quiet melancholy. It is just the Russians or the Poles

that are of a much gayer sort than the Ukrainians, livelier, more

easy-going in their social life, more frolicsome; not the Ukrainians,

but the Russians and Poles, are the very ones that are vying with one

another for the epithet of the “Frenchmen of the North” or “of the

East,” respectively. (This remarkable fact is due, in the first place,

to the unhappy history of the Ukraine). But, on the other hand, the

melancholy of the Ukrainians is quiet, while the occasional melancholy

of the Russians turns into despair and pessimism.

The Ukrainian summer and fall, warm and beautiful, has made the

Ukrainian, in contrast with the Russian, a farmer par excellence. The

warmth of these seasons is very similar to Southern European

conditions, and gives to the life of the Ukrainian people many southern

characteristics. The life in open communion with Nature, the

accessibility of her organic treasures, is much more pronounced in the

Ukraine than in Russia, White Russia or Poland. In the warm seasons the

Ukrainian lives much of the time outside his house. In the day he works

continuously in the field or in the garden, and even at night he

usually sleeps outdoors in the orchard or the yard. If the fields are

at a distance from the village, a large part of the population of the

place camp out in the open fields for several days during harvest time.

These are all characteristics of the life of the south. Yet we see in

our people no real characteristics of the people of the south. Despite

all this, the Ukrainian is much more domestic than the Russian, more

frugal and more temperate; the “extravagant Russian nature” is entirely

foreign to him. We have already seen that the Ukrainians do not have

gay manners, and in like manner their activity of thought is less than

that of the northern peoples, the Russians and the Poles. Yet the depth

of thought of the Ukrainians is much greater, and their popular poetry

incomparably deeper than that of the Russians or Poles. Dreaminess and

reserve of character is much greater in the Ukrainians who live in the

south than in the Poles and Russians who live in the north. All these

are the effects of a sorrowful past. Only in one respect do the

Ukrainians bear out their southern type of character; in their great

abilities and their generally rich intellectual gifts. Every

unprejudiced observer must admit that the Ukrainian peasant, almost the

only typical representative of our nation, surpasses almost all his

neighbors in his natural accomplishments.

The laziness and weakness of will peculiar to the southern nations

compared to the northern, have not developed into a typical

characteristic among the Ukrainians. The often remarkable indifference

of the Ukrainian is rather an outgrowth of sad historical events than

of the climate and the nature of the land in general. At most one might

blame the great fertility of the black soil. For the faith in this

fertility is almost never misplaced and favors the indifference of the

peasant. On the other hand, the five hundred years of Tatar oppression

were actually able to produce an inherited indifference. And why strive

and work, when at any moment the Tatar hordes might come and take or

burn everything?

Despite this historically inherited indifference, as we may call it,

the laziness peculiar to southerners cannot be ascribed to the

Ukrainians. They are better farmers than all their neighbors, with the

single exception of those who adopted progressive farming, as, for

example, the Prussian Poles. Domestic industry is also well developed

among the Ukrainians, and the Ukrainian seasonal workers are actually

sought after, especially in Germany, and earn a great deal. The

Ukrainian harvest-worker is more sought after and better paid than the

Russian. He works slowly but methodically, and achieves good results.

The Ukrainian colonists find tolerable living conditions in places in

which the Russian starves to death or from which he flees.

In like manner weakness of will is not a real peculiarity of the

Ukrainians, in spite of their southern location. The thousand years’

struggle with piratical Asia, the independent establishment of two

great state organizations, especially the second, after three centuries

of slavery, the new awakening in the 19th Century under such difficult

and hostile conditions, the splendid colonial expansion—all this speaks

rather for great energy than for weakness of will. It is certainly true

that in our people, oppressed by centuries of serfdom, energy and

strength of character must hide beneath a thick crust of indifference,

and our educated people find their energy weakened by the bad influence

of foreign cultures. But these facts show most clearly that an enormous

amount of energy and willpower is latent in the Ukrainian people,

which, to this day, however, has not been properly developed.

Among historians and anthropogeographers it is a much used commonplace

that the northern peoples always appear as conquerors who subjugate the

southern peoples, and that they are always the founders of states in

their particular climatic zones. The Germans overthrew the Roman

Empire, the Northern Frenchmen founded the French state, the Northern

Spaniards the Spanish, the Northern Italians, the Italian state, and

the North Germans united Germany. It is natural, therefore, that this

commonplace should be applied also in Eastern Europe. The “Northern”

Russians have, by the natural necessity of history, “united” the

“southern” Russians. The same explanation should be accepted as a

necessity by the Ukrainians, and nothing should be done to resist this

condition!

In reality this commonplace, like so many others, is false. The

Ukrainians, as we have already observed, possess no such

characteristics, as opposed to the Russians, as a southern race

possesses with regard to a northern neighbor. To be sure, the Russian

state now dominates the Ukraine. But the present Russian state is,

after all, only a branch of the ancient Ukrainian Kingdom of Kiev. The

ancient Ukrainian Kingdom subjugated the present Russian territory,

organized it as a state, even partly colonized it, and gave it a ruling

dynasty. The ancient Ukrainian state tradition was usurped by the

Muscovite states, and gave them all the prestige which the Muscovite

possesses. It was only the Tatar invasion that entirely held up the

political development of the Ukraine, and, at the same time, favored

the development of the Muscovite Empire. Only the Tatar invasion

brought Moscow the supremacy over the Ukraine which Russia still

enjoys. It was a foreign conquest, which has nothing to do with

climatic influences. The very name of Russia only came into use in the

time of Peter the Great!

From this survey of climatic influences, it appears, unequivocally,

that the Ukrainians cannot be classed with the so-called southern

peoples. The Ukrainians have all the characteristics of the races of

the North Temperate Zone, who are the representatives of the European

culture of today. The growth of national consciousness and of culture

will, without a doubt, raise the Ukrainians to the standard of the

European family of cultured nations. The nature of the country has, by

means of its influences, given them all the necessary prerequisites.

The significance of the flora and fauna, for a lowland people like the

Ukrainians, should be considered very great. From the

physico-geographical description of the Ukraine, everyone will observe

that the Ukraine may be naturally divided into two main parts, the

forest country and the steppe country. The mountain formations take up

only a comparatively small part of our territory.

Even among the Ukrainians themselves, the opinion is very widespread

that they are a steppe-people. The enemies of the Ukraine have largely

represented them in the eyes of Europe as a semi-nomadic steppe-people,

devoid of all culture, which thru their growth and development might

threaten the cultural treasures of Europe. These views, tho based

partly upon the great part the steppe has played in the history of the

Ukraine, and partly upon the unquestionable fact that three-fourths of

the present Ukrainian territory lies within the steppe region of

Eastern Europe, are, nevertheless, incorrect. For, a glance at the

floral map of Europe is enough to show that the so-called old Ukraine,

that is, the original Ukrainian territory, lies almost completely

within the forest region. That means Galicia, Kholm, Western Podolia,

Western Volhynia, Kiev, Chernihiv, etc. From here the most ancient

Ukrainian colonization advanced to the Black Sea, only to lose all the

steppe districts again upon the sudden nomad attack. For centuries the

steppes of the present Ukraine were the stamping-ground of

Mongolian-Turkish nomad tribes. The Cossack organization at last

wrested great areas from them, and made these accessible to Ukrainian

colonization. And only the last colonial expansion of the Ukrainians

has been able to reach the Pontian shore again. The Ukrainians, then,

were originally a forest and wood-meadow people. They have become in

part a steppe people, but only thru their latest colonial expansion.

And, just as today we would not call the English or the North Americans

steppe peoples, merely because they colonized the American prairies and

now inhabit them, so we can no more call the Ukrainians a steppe

people, merely because they have colonized the Southern European

steppes.

Not the steppe, but the forest and the wood-meadow are the native

floral conditions of the Ukrainian. In the forest zone and in the

adjacent parts of the forest-meadow zone, the seed of the Kiev State

originated. In its expansion, this state first of all embraced the

forest regions of the Ukraine, while the steppe regions were conquered

later and kept under the dominion of the state for a comparatively

short time only. The second center of the old Ukrainian historic life

also lies within the forest zone of the Ukraine, namely, the

Galician-Volhynian. Even the center of Ukrainian historical life that

extended farthest into the steppe, the Zaporog Sich, was dependent for

its existence upon the great wooded areas of the Veliki Luh on the

Dnieper and its tributaries, and thus bound to the forest country.

The pronounced inclination of the Ukrainian people to agriculture, from

the most ancient times down to the present, is another proof that it is

a forest people, paradoxical tho it may seem. For it is an undisputed

fact that, altho the steppes have apparently been most favorable to the

cultivation of the grain grasses, and altho the present main centers of

the grain production of the world lie in the steppe country of the

prairies, pampas, Ukraine, yet nowhere in the whole world have the

steppes brought forth an agricultural people. No steppe-people,

anywhere, ever began agriculture of its own accord. The forest peoples

had to teach the steppe-races agriculture in the first place. Only in

case of bitter necessity do the inhabitants of the steppes take to the

plough, and never has agriculture become part of their system to them.

How great was the part of the Ukrainian forest region in the past life

of the nation has already been suggested in Book I. Only to the forests

does the Ukrainian nation owe its preservation during the Tatar

attacks. The forests were the only refuge of the people, to the forest

zone the inhabitants of the steppes retreated whenever the steppes were

threatened by the nomads, moving back again at a favorable opportunity.

The Ukrainian forests have also been of great importance as boundaries.

The function of the forest to form important boundaries for races on a

low grade of culture is familiar to anthropogeography. In Ukrainian

history, too, this characteristic of the forests has appeared

prominently. The forests of the Ukrainian Polissye were of great

importance for the fencing-off of the East Slavic tribes, and by

forming a wide zone, difficult of passage, separating the East Slavic

tribes of the south from those of the north and west, they have

contributed a great deal to the formation of the three East Slavic

nations of today. In the days of the ancient Kingdom of Kiev, the

centers in which the Muscovite nation later developed bore the name of

Salissye (land behind the forest). There was a Pereyaslav Saliski,

Vladimir Saliski, etc.

The significance of the forest as a boundary has also made itself felt

in the internal history of the Ukraine. For the grade of culture upon

which the Ukraine remained thruout the Middle Ages and in the early

centuries of the modern era, the forests constituted good boundaries.

The forest divided the population into small groups, which lived apart

in separate clearings, every group living its own life. The forest made

communication difficult and did not permit the organization of a

powerful central state. The forest character of the old Ukraine was the

natural chief cause of the formation of principalities in the ancient

Kingdom of Kiev, and advanced that fateful particularism. It is not by

mere accident that Kiev lies on the border of the forest zone of the

Ukraine. Together with other causes, the thinner forests were an aid to

the more rapid development of the Kiev principality, and made it the

natural starting point for the great expansion under the reigns of

Oleh, Sviatoslav, Volodimir.

From his original territory the Ukrainian took with him his great

preference for trees, a love of trees which causes the white huts of a

typical Ukrainian village to be bordered with the fresh green of

leaves. The green of the trees in which the Ukrainian huts disappear,

enables us immediately to differentiate a Ukrainian from a Russian

village, which seems to be afraid of trees.

Consequently, the steppe is not originally native to the Ukrainian. The

words of the Cossack song, “The steppes so wide, the joyous land” were

not composed until the latter days of the Cossack organization. For

centuries the steppe meant to the Ukrainian the terrible, mysterious,

“wild field,” from which at every moment the nomad hosts, like a swarm

of locusts, invaded the Ukraine. The struggles of the Kingdom of Kiev

with the nomads show an anthropogeographer very plainly the reason of

their final failure. The ancient Ukrainians, being forest dwellers,

simply could not successfully fight the riders on the natural steppe or

the artificial steppe of their own fields. The ancient Ukrainians did

not feel at home in the steppe. A long evolution was necessary before

the Ukrainians adapted themselves to the steppe, and the beginning of

this adaptation was the Ukrainian Cossack organization. Not until after

the formation and development of the Cossack organization could the

Ukrainian people successfully advance into the steppe zone and colonize

it. Yet the denser settlement of the steppes did not take place until

toward the end of the 18th Century. Some of these early Ukrainian

settlements have, to this day, not lost the character of new colonies.

But these steppe districts were colonized by so great a mass of

Ukrainian colonists, and they increased so rapidly in the fertile

country, that today more than half the Ukrainians live in the steppe

zone, and thereby favor the widespread commonplace that the Ukrainians

are a steppe people.

The wealth of its flora and fauna very soon enabled the Ukraine to

prosper. Very early it was called a land “where milk and honey flows.”

This natural wealth of the organic world possessed the greater worth

for the reason that it was not soon exhausted, and offered, as it still

offers, to the population, an opportunity for constant work, enduring

activity and steady development. The natural treasures of the Ukrainian

territory are not the treasures of tropical countries which favor

laziness, but the treasures of a more thrifty Nature, which require

constant work to properly exploit them.

Man has changed the natural conditions of the flora and fauna of the

Ukraine to a great extent. These changes are not as fundamental as in

Western and Central Europe, but they have a great anthropogeographical

significance. The forest zone of the Ukraine is thinned even beyond the

normal and in places destroyed. The artificial steppe of the cultivated

land has penetrated very far to the north and west. Certain plant

species have become rare, others have entirely disappeared, while, on

the other hand, new ones have been acclimated. The original wealth of

game of the Ukraine is a thing of the past now, and the great abundance

of fish is almost all gone. On the other hand, man has increased the

number of domestic animals enormously.

All these conditions give to the Ukraine characteristics of a

cultivated country. As we shall see further on, the degree of

exploitation of natural resources is still very low, much lower than in

the genuinely cultured countries of Europe.

Despite all this, the Ukraine must be considered a land exceptionally

endowed with riches by Nature. Up to the present day this has been a

misfortune, for from all sides strangers have come in to take with full

hands of the riches of the Ukraine.

But the time has come, at last, in which the possibility lies in the

hands of the Ukrainian people to make use in the future of the rich

resources of the Ukrainian land for themselves.

ECONOMIC-GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEY OF UKRAINE

To give a lucid economic-geographical view of the Ukraine today is very

difficult—almost impossible. The Ukrainian territory is divided among

three states, and nowhere does the Ukrainian country form unbroken

administrative units. Consequently, the official statistics cannot give

an exact picture of the economic conditions of the Ukraine. The

following attempt, also, can lay no claim to accuracy. A very

heterogeneous and incomplete mass of material has made it impossible to

attain the desired accuracy and uniformity.

The Ukraine differs from the cultural countries of Central and Western

Europe first, in that its settlement is not yet complete, so to say.

Only the northwestern regions of the “Old Ukraine” possess a sufficient

density of population. The entire south and east are thinly, in places

even very thinly, peopled. And the complete exploitation of the natural

resources is still a far way off, even in the most thickly settled

parts of the Western Ukraine.

In our economic-geographical survey of the Ukraine, we shall begin with

the most primitive branches of the exploitation of natural resources

and proceed from them to those that are more advanced.

HUNTING AND FISHING

The most primitive way of exploiting the natural resources of a country

has always, and everywhere, been hunting and fishing. Both played a

great part in the economic life of the Ukraine a thousand years ago.

Our ancient chronicles contain many reports of the great abundance of

game and fish in the Ukrainian land, and of their great importance for

the population. Five centuries of Tatar warfare effectively interrupted

the exploitation of these natural treasures, and even in the 16th and

17th Century the Ukraine still aroused the amazement of travelers from

foreign lands, thru its great wealth of game and fish. In these

centuries, hunting and fishing were among the main branches of industry

of the Cossack border population of the Ukraine. As late as the second

half of the 18th Century, hunting and fishing were still two of the

main sources of industry of the Zaporog Sich. But soon agriculture

began to gain ground in the regions ruled by it, the density of the

population increased, and with it the fundamental strength of the

Zaporog organization. This circumstance seemed threatening to the

Russian government, and was the chief motive for the destruction of the

Sich.

Today hunting has almost no significance in the economic life of the

Ukraine. Altho in the year 1906, in Galicia, 500 stags, about 10,000

roes, over 2000 boars, about 90,000 rabbits, over 8000 pheasants,

50,000 partridges, 30,000 quail, 10,000 woodcocks, and 14,000 wild

ducks were killed, the figures for other countries at the same time

were much higher; in Bohemia which is more thickly populated there were

brought down more than 800,000 rabbits, 1,000,000 partridges, etc.

These figures show that in Galicia the natural wealth of game has

declined considerably, while the artificial conservation of game has

not yet begun. In the Austro-Hungarian part of the Ukraine, hunting has

become a mere diversion of the upper classes—a mere sport. The hunting

monopoly of the upper classes even bring to the country folk serious

disadvantages, for boars and stags cause great damage to agriculture,

especially in the Boiko and Hutzul country, and it is forbidden to keep

them off. This circumstance encourages poaching, which in many

districts is quite common. The extermination of beasts of prey, bears,

wolves, lynx and wildcats is as a rule, undertaken only in occasional

general chases, but the Ukrainian mountain-dwellers are very well able,

despite all game laws, to defend themselves and their herds effectively

from these wild animals. In 1906 more than 9000 foxes were brought down

in Galicia.

In the Russian Ukraine the economic importance of hunting is as slight

as in Austria-Hungary. Nowhere in this region do we find a developed,

profitable hunting industry. Even in the Polissye hunting is not very

important and is at most an avocation for a few forest settlers. Here

rabbits, roes, boars, elk, grouse, wild fowl and water-game are

sometimes hunted. Bison and beaver hunting is now very strictly

forbidden. Many foxes and badgers are killed and a relatively large

number of bears and wolves. Volhynia is much poorer in game, and still

poorer are Podolia, and the districts of Kiev, Poltava and Kharkiv. In

all the places, the most that one can get a shot at, aside from wild

fowl, is rabbits and foxes, and sometimes wolves. In the forests and

swamps of the Chernihov country there is a somewhat greater abundance

of game. Hunting is most important, relatively, in the southern part of

the Ukraine, on the Black Sea border and in the Caucasus lands. Besides

roes, rabbits, and foxes, there are hunted in the steppes: wolves,

sayga-antelopes and wild dogs; and in the Caucasus: bison, stags,

bears, and lynx. The number of steppe and waterfowl, e.g., bustards,

partridge, quail, wild geese and wild ducks, and of mountain fowl, as

pheasants, mountain-quail, and grouse, is still considerable.

Collecting the eggs of waterfowl is still a remunerative occupation. On

the shores of the Caspian Sea 130,000 Caspian seals are killed every

year.

Of much greater importance than hunting is the fishing industry. It is

only a weak reminiscence of what it once was, yet it remains to this

day an important economic element. The Ukrainian fishing industry is

carried on in three regions: on the high sea, in the river-mouths, and

in the interior of the land, in rivers, lakes and ponds.

The actual sea-fishing industry attains relatively slight results, on

the average 24½ million kilograms a year. On the Black Sea, along the

shores of Bessarabia, Kherson and Tauria, a great amount of mackerel,

sardines, herrings and sturgeon-like fish are caught. The main

fisheries of the northern Pontian shore are situated at the Kinburn

bar, at the island of Tendva, in the Bay of Karkinit, at Cape

Tarkhankut, at Eupatoria, Balaklava, Yalta, Sudak, and Theodosia.

Fishing on the high seas, because of its great cost, is undertaken only

by the large enterprising companies, who hire the Ukrainian fishing

companies (artili) for the entire summer. Of late, fishing on a small

scale has begun to develop. The small fishermen catch chiefly mackerel,

which are then salted, or, less often, smoked. They also go after the

small but savory Black Sea oysters, of which an average number of one

million a year are gathered.

Far greater profit is yielded by the fisheries at the mouths of the

rivers, in the limans, and particularly on the largest liman of all,

the Sea of Azof. The annual yield here attains an average of 140

million kilograms. At the mouths of the Danube the chief fishing center

is Vilkiv. Toward the end of the 19th century there lived at this place

900 independent fisherman, who sometimes united to form artils. Here

they catch chiefly sturgeon and other fish of the sturgeon class (on

the average 30,000 a year), and four and a half million of Pontian

herrings. At the mouths of the Dniester, Boh and Dnieper, chiefly river

fish are caught. Herrings and sturgeon-like fish are of minor

consequence here. The fishermen in this region are always organized

either in artils, in which the profits are shared equally among the

members, or in so-called takhvi, which are hired by the entrepreneurs.

The chief center of the fishing trade and of the putting up of canned

fish, is Odessa. Yet the Bay of Odessa cannot compare with the Sea of

Azof in fish production. The average value of the annual haul here

exceeded a million rubles in the latter years of the 19th Century. Over

11 million kilograms of sturgeon-like fish and other large fish,

besides 7 million herrings, were caught here annually. In some winters

more than 70,000 fishermen, with 20,000 to 30,000 horses and oxen,

gather on the frozen Sea of Azof. With gigantic nets, which are

sometimes nearly two kilometers long, a very profitable fishing

industry is carried on here. Important fishing centers, with great

freezing plants and works for salting and smoking, are situated in Osiv

(Azof) and Kerch. The members of the fisher artils come principally

from the Poltava and Kharkiv country.

The Ukrainians may also claim a rather prominent part in the fishing

industry of the Caspian Sea, which yields more than half a billion

kilograms of fish annually. The Ukrainian Caspian fishermen come from

Ukrainian colonies on the Volga, and from the eastern parts of the

Ukraine proper.

The interior fishing industry on the rivers, lakes and ponds now has

only slight significance. On the Dniester and Dnieper on the Pripet,

Desna, Sula and Orel, and on the Donetz there still exist here and

there fisher-artils, but the fish are caught only for local use. In the

Polissye region the fishing industry still yields some profit, e.g., in

the District of Mosir about 40,000 rubles a year, in the District of

Pinsk only 3500 rubles. Lake Knias yields 10,000 rubles worth of fish

annually. All of Galicia yields about 1,500,000 kilograms a year, of

which two-thirds are contributed by the Ukrainian part of the country.

In examining the fishing industry of the Ukraine one cannot escape

reminiscences that are painful. Everywhere a ruthless system of pillage

and waste is carried on. The excessively fine meshes of the nets catch

the young broods of fish with the old, and these are either sold for a

few kopeks a pound or simply thrown away. The fish which come up the

rivers to spawn are ruthlessly intercepted. A closed season or region

barely exists, except on paper. We need not wonder, therefore, that the

abundance of fish in the Ukraine is rapidly decreasing, and fishing is

losing its importance more and more. Not a soul thinks of a rational

method of breeding fish, of increasing the stock of fish in the

streams. In Galicia a start has been made, but thus far the results are

very slight. And yet the Ukraine, being an almost exclusively

agricultural country, where there is no factory sewage to poison the

rivers, could very easily recover its fame as a land abounding in fish.

The related industry of crab-fishing is not developed in the Ukraine,

altho the Jewish dealers of Eastern Galicia send whole wagon-loads of

crabs from Galician and Russian Podolia to the west. The old Zaporog

regions have been famous since ancient times for their abundance of

crabs. In Oleshki there also exists a drying-plant for crabs’ tails.

From this short survey of the hunting and fishing industry of the

Ukraine, we perceive that these branches of industry play only a small

part in the economic life of the Ukrainian population. A further proof

of this fact is the small percentage of the population which engages in

this work. This percentage amounts to 0.2% in the Russian-Ukraine; in

the Austrian Ukraine it must be much smaller still.

FORESTRY

How extensive the wooded area of the Ukraine is cannot be determined

exactly without detailed investigation, for the same reason that

statistical figures concerning the Ukraine in other fields are

difficult to determine. An approximate calculation of the forest

surface gives us an area of over 110,000 square kilometers, that is 13%

of the entire surface of the country. These figures show us that the

Ukraine is one of the more sparsely-wooded countries of Europe. Of all

the larger territories of our continent, only England, with its 4%, is

poorer in forests. There remain only smaller territories, as Portugal

(2.8%), the Netherlands (8%), Denmark (8.3%), Greece (9.3%). So old a

land of culture as France still possesses 15.8% forest surface, Germany

25.9%, Hungary 27.4%, Austria 32.7%, Russia 38.8%. Among the large

territories, the United States stand nearest to the Ukraine as far as

their forest area (10.3%) is concerned.

The causes of the comparative lack of forests in the Ukraine are to be

sought, first of all, in the fact that it includes large parts of the

steppe region of Eastern Europe. The percentage of forest land in the

various regions of the Ukraine show us this most clearly. The mountain

regions still retain the highest proportion of forest. The Bukowina has

42% of forest (District of Kimpolung 78%), the Ukrainian region of

Northeastern Hungary about 40% (Marmarosh 62%). Then come the Ukrainian

regions of the forest zone: Polissye, from Minsk down 38.2%, Volhynia

29.6%, Galicia 25.4%, Grodno 25.5, Podlakhia, starting from Lublin,

25.1%, from Sidletz 19.8%. In the same class, as far as forest area is

concerned, the Kuban region seems to stand. Besides the heavily wooded

mountain region, this division includes the luhi in the foothill

country and the treeless steppes; hence the percentage comes out very

small—19.8%. The transition between the forest and the steppe zone is

indicated by the following series: Kiev 18%, Chernihiv 15%, Podolia

10.9%, Kharkiv 8.5% of forest area. The steppe regions of the Ukraine

have very little forest land: Kursk 7.1%, Voroniz 6.8%, Bessarabia

5.8%, Tauria (Yaila forests) 5.7%, Poltava 4.7%, Katerinoslav 2.4%, the

Don region the same, Kherson 1.4%, Stavropol 0.3%.

In this distribution of forest we see a certain analogy between the

Ukraine and the United States. Here the steppes are treeless, there it

is the prairies. Here the forest predominates in the Carpathians, there

in the Appalachians; here, just as there, we have zones of transition

from forest regions to the steppes. But there is another point of

similarity between the Ukraine and the United States—the ruthless

exploitation and waste in forestry. This criminal waste is the second

main cause for the lack of forests of the Ukraine. It began in the 16th

Century and it still continues today. Historical sources mention great

forest formations, even in those regions of the Ukraine which are now

poor in forests. The “Great Forest” (veliki luh) in the Zaporog land,

the “Black Forest” at the sources of the Inhul, the large forests of

the Poltava and Kharkiv region, the Derevlan jungles, the gigantic

forests on the Buh and Vislok, in the Rostoche, all have either

entirely disappeared from the earth’s surface or have changed into

miserable remnants, which, at any moment, may fall a final victim to

human greed. A host of geographical names, in regions which are almost

entirely treeless today, point to former forests. Thick, primitive oak

trunks are found in the beds of rivers which flow only thru the

treeless steppe-region. In five decades, in the second half of the 19th

Century, the forest area of the Government of Kharkiv decreased from

10.9% to 8.5%, in Poltava from 13% to 4.7%, Chernihiv from 17.1% to

15%. Detailed investigations of the ground have proved that the forest

area of the District of Poltava was originally 34% (now 7%), of the

District of Romny 28% (now 9%) and of the District of Lubni 30% (now

4%). Similar conditions of forest devastation prevail everywhere in the

Ukraine. Thus, the forest area of Galicia, for example, has decreased

by 2000 square kilometers, i.e., almost 3% of the total surface area of

the country, in the course of the last century.

We have already frequently called attention to the sad results of this

criminal waste for the entire land. But, because of the low grade of

culture of the nations dominating the Ukraine, the Polish nation and

the Russian, no attention is paid to the fatal results of forest

destruction. The forests are recklessly cut down for lumber, and year

by year the scarcity of wood is being felt in most regions of the

Ukraine. Only in Podlakhia, Volhynia, Polissye, and in the mountain

regions of the Ukraine, is there no scarcity of wood. The three cubic

meters of wood which, on the average, are due every inhabitant of the

Ukraine, are not easily accessible to more than one-fifth of the

Ukrainians. At the same time, the forests of the Ukraine are, as a

rule, badly managed. Even in the Austro-Hungarian parts of the Ukraine

there are very few professional foresters; in Galicia for example, 250

to 800. Conditions are still worse in the Russian-Ukraine.

Consequently, the forest does not grow up again very well, and a great

deal of wood is simply ruined. This happens chiefly in the mountain

forests of the Carpathians, where hundreds of thousands of cubic meters

of wood decay every year. In the regions which are poor in forests, the

products of the woods are carefully and economically used, so that, for

instance, from one hectare of forest in the Poltava region, 11.5 cubic

meters of wood are produced every year; in the region of Katerinoslav,

7 cubic meters. Of the production of the Ukrainian forest, building

wood constitutes only a comparatively small part. There is a crushing

preponderance of firewood, especially in the regions which are poor in

forests. Building wood, in large quantities, comes from the forests of

the Polissye and of the Carpathians only. The export of building wood

from Galicia and the Bukowina reached a million and a half cubic meters

annually at the end of the century. The export of wood from the

Polissye, starting from Minsk, exceeded 900,000 cubic meters. The

complete production of Galicia in the year 1900 was 3,660,000 cubic

meters of building wood and an equal quantity of firewood.

The reclaiming of forests, even in the Austrian Ukraine, where it is

required by law, is not properly administered. It is still worse in the

Russian Ukraine. Hence, the forest surface of the Ukraine is constantly

decreasing instead of remaining unchanged or even increasing, as

usually happens in the cultured lands of Europe. And yet, the Ukraine

is one of those countries in which the forest problem is a life

problem.

The Ukrainian people engage in the Ukrainian lumber industry only as

labor-power, while the money profit goes to strangers—great landowners

or middlemen. The forest-area which is in the possession of Ukrainian

peasants is very small, even in Galicia, where at the time of the

removal of the labor tax system, at least small patches of forest came

into the possession of the peasant communities. Almost all the forests

of the Ukraine belong to the large landowners, the clergy and the

national lands.

The lumber industry and the industrial exploitation of the forest

products engages but a slight part of the Ukrainian people. In the

Russian Ukraine the percentage of such workers is barely 0.1%. In this

percentage, however, the entire mass of Ukrainian peasants which seeks

its incidental profit in forest work, is not considered. In the

Carpathian regions of the Ukraine this percentage increases a

hundredfold and more.

AGRICULTURE

Since the very first beginnings of the history of the Ukraine, the main

occupation of its people has been, and has remained to this day,

agriculture. To give a complete picture of Ukrainian agriculture is

beyond the scope of our little book. Even a detailed economic study

could not do justice to this task. Hence, we shall have to limit

ourselves to its most important phases.

Almost nine-tenths of the Ukrainian people are engaged in agriculture.

In the Russian Ukraine, the agricultural percentage of the population,

according to official estimate, is 86.4%. This figure is probably

correct for the Austrian-Ukraine as well, altho the biased calculations

of Buzek place the percentage of farmers among the Ukrainians of

Galicia at 94.4%. These figures show us very clearly the significance

of agriculture in the economic life of the Ukraine. Now, a person

seeing these figures and knowing the fertility of the Ukraine might

easily imagine that agriculture here stands upon a high plane. Such a

view, however, would be entirely false. Agriculture is on a very very

low plane in the Ukraine.

Yet the causes of this sad state of affairs do not lie in the nature of

the land. The climate of the Ukraine favors the cultivation of grains

as no other does. Barely one small part of the steppe-zone is

unfavorable to agriculture, because of its frequent periods of drought.

The soil of the Ukraine is one of the most fertile on the whole globe.

More than three-fourths of the Ukraine lies in the Black Earth Region,

and many varieties of soil in the northwestern part of the Ukraine are

by no means without value and at least equal to the best soils of

Germany. Not in Nature, but in the cultural conditions, lie the causes

of the low grade of Ukrainian agriculture.

The first and main cause is the lack of enlightenment among the people

of the Ukraine. The Ukraine peasant cultivates his field entirely after

the manner of his forefathers, which may have proved excellent a

hundred years ago, and actually did make the Ukrainian peasant appear

as the best farmer among his neighbors of other races, but they fail

completely in these days of intensive cultivation of the soil. The

illiteracy of the Ukrainian peasant renders almost inaccessible to him

all the great progress of agricultural science. The old methods of

cultivation, the primitive agricultural implements, waste his energy

and his stock of living resources. The use of agricultural machines,

which may be of great significance even in intensive farming on a small

scale, is almost unknown to the Ukrainian peasant. The progressive

amelioration of the soil and the national rotation of crops is not at

all of wide application. And all efforts at enlightening the Ukrainian

peasantry are hindered as much as possible by the governments

dominating them, by their Polish and their Russian masters.

The highest level, relatively, in agriculture, is attained by the

western borderlands of the Ukraine, Podlakhia, the Khohos country, and

Galicia. The poorer quality of the soil has always required more

intensive cultivation here. Besides, the influences of advanced methods

of cultivation sifted thru more easily here, whether indirectly thru

the Polish territory, or directly thru the influence of the German

colonies. The greater enlightenment of the Ukrainian peasants of

Galicia has brought it about that they now regularly apply rational

rotation of crops and fertilization of the soil, even with artificial

fertilizers, and possess pretty good agricultural implements. The

three-field system has disappeared almost everywhere in this region,

and continues in use only in the most fertile parts of Podolia. In the

mountains, on the other hand, making land arable by means of fires

followed immediately by planting, is still a procedure frequently met

with. In the Polissye region burning is still frequently applied, but

the two-field and three-field systems are used more frequently. On the

same principle, agriculture is carried on in the northern parts of

Volhynia, Kiev and Chernihiv. In the southern parts of these districts,

as well as in Podolia, Poltava and Kharkiv, the three-field system

predominates. Manuring is usually confined to small plots directly

adjoining the farmhouse. Here, too, however, an advance to rational

rotation of crops and to the multi-field system is undeniable. In the

steppe zone the method of cultivation becomes more careless and the

so-called fallow-system prevails. The steppe soil is cultivated for a

number of years and then left lying fallow for some time. In very

recent years, however, even the steppe-peasant has had to face the hard

necessity of going on to the intensive methods of cultivation.

The agricultural implements of the Ukrainian peasants have undergone a

great change. The primitive wooden plough, without metal mounting, has

been retained only in places, in the Polissye region and the Carpathian

country, more as a relic of the fathers than as an agricultural

implement. In the entire central zone of the Ukraine, the typical

Ukrainian plough, made of wood, with strong iron fittings, is used.

Iron ploughs are rapidly coming into use. In the southern steppe zone

of the Ukraine, the peasant has by far the best implements. Iron

ploughs of different kinds are used here, in imitation of the German

colonists, while sowing, harvesting, and also threshing machines are

found as the property of large farmers or of agricultural co-operative

associations.

It is possible, then, to note a certain progress in Ukrainian

agriculture. The Russian and White Russian peasant is much more badly

off, but the Ukrainian peasant, too, has a long way to go in order to

reach the level of even the Ukrainian large landowners. Various

agricultural co-operative associations are working to raise the

standard of agriculture among the Ukrainian peasantry. One of these

co-operative associations has 90 branches, 1100 local groups, and

27,000 members—the Eastern Galician “Silsky Hospodar.” Such

associations would, if not hindered in their development (especially by

the Russian Government), become of great importance in raising the

level of the agricultural industry of the Ukraine, that ancient granary

of Europe.

The second cause of the sad condition of Ukrainian agriculture lies in

their unsound property conditions. The foreign conquerors, who were

continually attracted by the fertility of the Ukrainian land, after

taking possession of the land, divided it among their upper classes.

The foreign conquerors have succeeded in denationalizing the Ukrainian

nobility, have succeeded even in developing the republican Cossack

organization into a new class of landowners and, very largely in

russifying them. Foreign rule in the Ukraine has always supported

foreign ownership of land on a large scale, and the Ukrainian peasant

must be satisfied with small, mediocre and widely scattered bits of

land.

Now for a few corroborative figures. In the Ukrainian part of Galicia

the large estates embrace 40.3% of the total area. In the Governments

of Chernihiv, Poltava and Kharkiv, the proportion of peasant-owned land

is still rather large (53%, 52%, 59%), because here the property of

descendants of the old-time Cossacks is included. Far worse are the

conditions in other parts of the Ukraine. In Volhynia the peasant-owned

land constitutes only 40% of the area, in Podolia 48%, in Kiev 46%, in

Kherson 37%, in Katerinoslav 45%, in Tauria 37%, while in the Polissian

Government of Minsk the peasants retain only 28% of the land.

The results of such unsound property conditions are fatal to the

ever-increasing density of the peasant population. Land-famine has

become chronic all thru the Ukraine. The parcelling out of the large

estates which began with such fine results in Galicia a few years ago

has now come to a halt, and the Stolypin radical agrarian reform in the

Russian Ukraine has thus far only slight results to show. To be sure,

the amount of property of the medium landowners is decreasing, but the

giant estates are not only not losing ground, but even show a steady,

tho gradual, growth.

As a result of the ever increasing scarcity of land, the Ukrainian

peasants are splitting up their property more and more, trying to rent

as much land as possible from the large landowners, and seeking

subsidiary occupations in domestic work; but a large percentage find it

necessary to leave their fatherland and to seek homes in Caucasia,

Turkestan, Siberia, Canada, Brazil and Argentina. And this sad fact

need not amaze us. For, while the foreign colonists who settled in

Southern Ukraine upon the invitation of Catherine II were given 65

hectares of land per head, the Ukrainian peasant, after the abolition

of serfdom, in 1861, was given a maximum of 3½ hectares, and in many

cases only 1½ hectares per head. In half a century the rural population

has doubled, while the area of cultivation has not increased

perceptibly at all. Thus, there existed in the Government of Poltava,

as early as twenty years ago, more than 60% of peasant-farms with an

area of cultivation of only 1.3 desiatins, while another four percent

of estates occupied more than 5 desiatins. How can one speak of

progressive farming under such property conditions? Those 60% of

peasant farms resemble very closely the sort of plots occupied by

cottagers or squatters. And the consequence: 62% of the emigrants who

emigrated to Russian Asia in 1910 came from the Ukrainian governments,

that “granary” of Russia. And not only from the thickly populated

districts of Kiev or Poltava, but also from the comparatively thinly

populated, very fertile districts of the Ukraine—from Kherson,

Katerinoslav and Tauria.

The third reason for the sad condition of Ukrainian agriculture, is the

community ownership of land established in the Eastern Ukraine. The

basis of their system, which is in vogue everywhere in Great-Russia, is

that the land is not owned by the individual peasant, but by the entire

community, which apportions it among its individual members. This

Muscovite property system is unbearable to the Ukrainian peasant and

causes him to neglect his land, since it does not really belong to him.

It does not pay him at all to cultivate the ground better than his

neighbor, since, in the new apportionment, the carefully improved patch

may fall to someone else.

If, therefore, despite all these unfavorable conditions, the

agricultural production of the Ukraine and its exports of food stuffs

are very great, this fact is due, above all, to the great fertility of

the Ukrainian soil and the economic policy of the large landowners,

who, in spite of the frequent danger of famine in their own country,

continue to export the products of their great estates beyond the

borders of the land.

After these general observations, we proceed to a short survey of

agriculture in the Ukraine. None of the European countries (with the

exception of Russia) possesses as great an area under cultivation as

the Ukraine. It amounts to more than 45 million hectares, that is, more

than 32% of the area of cultivation of European Russia, which is six

times as large as the Ukraine. The proportion of the area of

cultivation in the Ukraine is nearly 53% of the total area of the

country. In this respect the Ukraine is surpassed only by France (56%).

In Germany, the proportion is only 48.6%, in Austria 36.8%, in Hungary

43.1%, in Russia 26.2%. To be sure, the proportion of the cultivated

area is very different in different districts of the Ukraine. The most

agricultural land is found in the steppe and transition regions:

Kherson 78%, Poltava 75%, Kursk 74%, Kharkiv 71%, Voroniz and

Katerinoslav 69% each, Podolia and Tauria 64% each, Bessarabia 61%,

Kiev 57%, Chernihiv 55%. The forest regions possess much less farm

land: Galicia 48%, Grodno 40%, Volhynia 37%, Minsk 24%, etc. Besides

this, the farm land within each of the above mentioned regions is

diversely distributed. In Galicia, for example, the area of cultivation

is apportioned as follows: In Eastern Podolia 75–80%, in Western

Podolia 60–75%, in Pidhirye only 20–30%, in the Hutzul country only

10%, of the total area. Similar conditions prevail in the Bukowina, in

Upper Hungary, Caucasia. In the level regions of the Ukraine these

local differences are slighter.

To calculate the general agricultural production of the Ukraine is

difficult, if not impossible. By combining various reports, we get, for

the yearly average in the beginning of the 20th Century, a grand total

of 150 million metric hundred weights. (This number, however, includes

only the wheat, rye, and barley production.) In this respect, the

Ukraine surpasses all the countries of Europe except Russia. Its

production is greater than that of Austria, Hungary or of France, to

say nothing of other European States.

Following are several figures about the harvest yield of the Central

regions of the Ukraine in 1910. Volhynia produced 73.4 million puds (1

pud = 16.4 kilograms), Kiev 113.4, Podolia 115.9, Kherson 188.6,

Chernihiv 40, Poltava 113.6, Kharkiv 95.9, Katerinoslav 194.9, Tauria

138.3, Kuban 214.4 million puds. The total yield of the central regions

of the Ukraine (without the borderlands, which also produce a great

deal, as for example, parts of Kursk, Voroniz, the Don region, etc.)

totalled 215 million metric hundred weights, and was, consequently, six

times as great as the harvest yield of Russian Poland, and comprised

39% of the total production of European Russia and over 33% that of the

entire Russian Empire. If we consider now that the Russian Ukraine

comprises only a twenty-ninth part of the gigantic Russian Empire and

barely one-fourth of its population, we recognize the great importance

attached to the Ukraine as the granary of Russia.

Among the species of grain grown in the Ukraine, wheat is without doubt

of the first importance. In the Southern Ukraine wheat takes up half

the area of cultivation, decreasing rapidly toward the north and west.

In the Government of Kherson the wheat fields cover 51% of the

cultivated surface, in Katerinoslav 50%, in Tauria and in the Don

region 49%, in Bessarabia 36%, in Podolia 30%, in Kharkiv 29%, in

Poltava and in Kiev 22%, in Galicia 14%, in Volhynia 11%, in Grodno 4%,

in Minsk 3%, in Chernihiv only 1%. In Kiev, Podolia, Volhynia, Galicia,

more winter wheat is raised; in the Southern Ukraine, more summer

wheat. The mean annual yield per hectare is 10½ hl. for winter wheat

and 7½ hl. for summer wheat. The mean annual yield of wheat in the

first decade of the 20th Century in Russian Ukraine was 68 million

metric quintals, that is, over 46% of the production of European

Russia. (In Eastern Galicia it was 1.9 million q.). The chief centers

of wheat production in the Ukraine are Kuban (17 million q.),

Katerinoslav (12.4 million q.), Kherson (12.4 million q.), Tauria (9

million q.), Poltava (6.3 million q.), Podolia (5.8 million q.),

Kharkiv (4.9 million q.), Kiev (4.2 million q.), Stavropol (3.3 million

q.), and Volhynia (2.7 million q.). Wheat is one of the chief exports

of the Ukraine.

Rye is cultivated chiefly in the northern and western districts of the

Ukraine, where it is the chief grain used for breadmaking. In

Chernihiv, Minsk and Grodno, rye takes up 48% of the farm land, in

Volhynia 38%, in Poltava 3%, in Kharkiv 29%, in Kiev 28%, in the Don

region 22%, in Katerinoslav and Podolia 19%, in Tauria 18%, in Kherson

and Galicia 17%, in Bessarabia only 7%. Rye (almost everywhere winter

rye) yields on the average 10½ hl. per hectare. The chief districts of

production are Poltava (55 million q.), Volhynia (4.9 million q.), Kiev

(4.8 million q.). The total rye output of the Ukraine is as high as 42

million q., that is, over 20% of the Russian output.

Barley is raised mostly in the Southern Ukraine, where it takes up 28%

of the farm land in Tauria, 26% in Katerinoslav, 21% in Kharkiv and

Kherson, 18% in Bessarabia, 17% in the Don regions. The chief districts

of production are Katerinoslav (9.2 million q.), Kherson (7.9 million

q.), and Kuban (6.9 million q.) Barley is also an important export of

the Southern Ukraine. In other regions of the Ukraine less barley is

raised, e.g., in Poltava 13%, in Polissye and in Galicia 9%. The barley

production of the Russian Ukraine amounts to 49 million q., therefore

61% of the Russian production of barley.

The importance of the remaining grains is, of course, comparatively

slight. Oats take up on the average 16% of the farm land in the Ukraine

(21% in the Polissye region, 17% in Galicia, 16% in Chernihiv, 11% in

Kharkiv and Poltava, 5% in Southern Ukraine). The total production is

28 million q. Kiev, Volhynia and Poltava take first rank. As a bread

cereal, oats are of some importance only among the Carpathian people of

the Ukraine. The Eastern Galician oats production amounts to 4.5

million q. Spelt is raised very seldom and then only along the western

borders of the Ukraine. Buckwheat is of the greatest importance in the

Chernihiv country (about 27% of the farm area and a yield of 0.8

million q. a year), and Kiev, Volhynia, and Poltava each produce almost

as much. In other regions of the Ukraine, buckwheat is raised much less

frequently (7% in Polissye, 2% in Galicia), in the southern part of the

Ukraine almost none at all. Millet is raised chiefly in the Government

of Kiev (10% of the farm-land, 2.3 million q. annual production) and

Voroniz (9%). In Kharkiv and Poltava the amount of land used for millet

is only 4%, in Galicia 1%. In Kherson the cultivation of the

Chugara-millet has been begun. The chief region of Indian corn

cultivation is Bessarabia, where this crop takes up 32% of the area of

cultivation. Indian corn is also grown in the adjacent regions of

Podolia (7%), Kherson (3%), Galicia (3%), and the Bukowina, playing an

important part in feeding the population in these regions. The chief

regions of corn production are Podolia (1.8 million q.), the Ukrainian

part of Bessarabia and Kherson (each 1.1 million q.) and Southeastern

Galicia (0.9 million q.).

Besides grains and cereals, some other species of plants are of great

importance in the agricultural production of the Ukraine. The first of

these is the potato. The fact that the yield of the potato is six or

eight times that of the other plants makes it a very important staple.

Yet this advantage of the potato is but little exploited in the

Ukraine. Only in Galicia does the potato take up 14% of the farm-land

(annual production in Eastern Galicia 38.7 million q.). Even in the

Polissye region and in Chernihiv, only 6% of the farm-land consists of

potato-fields, in Poltava and Kharkiv only 3%, in the Southern Ukraine

barely 1%. The total production of potatoes in the Russian Ukraine is

63.2 million q. annually, therefore 22% of the production of European

Russia. The large landowners use the potato for distilling alcohol

(especially in Galicia), or for cattle-feed.

Various species of beans and lentils are raised everywhere in the

Ukraine, but on a small scale, chiefly in kitchen-gardens. In Galicia

these vegetables take up 3% of the farm-land, in Polissye and Chernihiv

2% each, in the other districts of the Ukraine still less. The culture

of forage (clover, lucerne, fodder-turnip) is still in its infancy in

the Ukraine. Only in Galicia do such plants take up more than 10% of

the farm-land.

The cultivation of commercial plants stands upon a comparatively low

level. Most extensive is the cultivation of hemp and flax; but it takes

up only a tiny part of the general area of cultivation of the land.

Flax is cultivated chiefly in the Polissye region and in Katerinoslav

(3% of the farm-land). In Chernihiv, Poltava, Kharkiv, it takes up 1 to

2% of the farm-land, in Galicia 1% (together with hemp). In the

Southern Ukraine a short-stemmed variety of flax, raised only for

obtaining oil, is cultivated widely. Hemp takes up on the average 1% of

the farm-land, only in Chernihiv as much as 4%. All the hemp products

are used in home industry, white the flax products are mostly exported.

Another plant grown for the sake of oil thruout the Ukraine, but

especially in the eastern borderlands of the country, is the sunflower.

Rapeseed is grown only by the large landowners, chiefly in Kherson,

Kiev, Poltava, and Podolia. Poppy is cultivated everywhere in the

Ukraine even by the peasants. Among the industrial plants of the

Ukraine the sugar-beet plays a very important part. In the year 1897

Russia had 410,000 hectares of beet-fields, 330,000 hectares of this

area being in the Ukraine. The total Russian production of sugar-beets

was 60 million metric hundredweights, of which 50 millions, that is,

five-sixths, came from the Ukraine. The most important centers of

sugar-beet production lie in the Governments of Kiev, Kharkiv and

Podolia, much less being produced in Volhynia, Chernihiv and Kursk. In

the Austrian Ukraine sugar-beet culture is developed only in

Southeastern Galicia and Northern Bukowina. Not only the large

landowners, but also frequently the peasants, engage in sugar-beet

culture with great profit.

Another important commercial plant of the Ukraine is tobacco, which

takes up over 50,000 hectares of farm-land, 3000 hectares of it in

Galicia. The chief districts of tobacco production are Chernihiv,

Poltava, Kuban and Tauria. Much less is produced in the Black Sea

region in Podolia, Volhynia, Bessarabia, Kherson and Kharkiv. The

tobacco production in Russian Ukraine in 1908 amounted to over 660,000

q., that is, 69% of the total production of Russia, in Galicia 50,000

q. Tobacco culture has a great future in the Ukraine, because the

ground and the climate are wonderfully fit for it. But first the

unfavorable conditions, which lie chiefly in the poor organization of

the tobacco trade, must be removed.

Hops are raised in the Ukraine to a very slight extent. In Galicia only

the large landowners engage in a little hop culture on 2300 hectares of

ground. In Volhynia the Chekhic colonists have introduced the

cultivation of hops. It comprises about 3000 hectares of land and

yields over 16,000 q. of hops a year, that is 40% of the total Russian

output of hops.

FRUIT AND VEGETABLE RAISING

Vegetable-culture is very slightly developed in the Ukraine. Beyond the

little vegetable gardens about the houses and the melon-patches in the

steppe we see no developed vegetable culture even in the neighborhood

of large cities. It is worthy of mention only in the Chernihiv and

Odessa regions, as well as in the old Zaporog country on the Dnieper

(Oleshki, etc.). Here vegetables are harvested twice a year, in the

early summer for exportation and in the fall for home use. The South

Ukrainian melon plantations (bashtani) annually yield great masses of

sweet melons, watermelons, pumpkins and cucumbers. Here there has even

arisen a special class of bashtanki, who rent pieces of land for melon

patches.

Fruit-culture is much more highly developed in the Ukraine. The love of

the Ukrainian people for trees favors the planting of orchards. The

ignorance of progressive fruit-culture, owing to illiteracy, as well as

the exploitation of the fruit growers by middlemen is hindering the

development of Ukrainian fruit-culture, which, nevertheless, has a

great future before it, and even now plays an important part in the

economic life of the Ukraine.

The greatest amount of space is taken up by orchards in Bessarabia

(40,000 hectares), where the more delicate kinds of apples, pears,

plums and walnuts, almonds and apricots are raised. In Podolia the

orchards of the peasants alone comprise more than 26,000 hectares.

Besides apples, pears and plums, great quantities of cherries are

raised here. The orchards usually lie in the deep river-valleys. The

yar of the Dniester, between Khotin and Yampol, produces annually half

a million metric hundredweights of fruit. From Podolia and Bessarabia

over 800,000 q. of fresh fruit, 100,000 q. of dried fruit and 20,000 q.

of nuts and almonds are exported annually. The most luxuriantly growing

orchards are those of Tauria, which cover over 7000 hectares on the

northern declivities of the Yaila Mountains. The annual production

exceeds 160,000 q. of fruit and 40,000 q. of nuts. In this region the

tenderest species of apples, pears and plums flourish, besides apricots

(4,000 q. a year) and peaches. About the middle of May the cherries

ripen here. In the middle of June the apricots; at the end of June

plums and early pears; about the middle of July peaches and early

apples; in August we have autumn pears and apples, and in the first

half of September, the winter apples.

Beyond these districts, fruit-culture is practised on a large scale in

the Kiev region and in Volhynia. Here, above all, the hardier northern

species of apples and pears are raised, as well as cherries. In Kherson

and Katerinoslav, too, fruit-raising flourishes; especially in the

Dnieper valley, where apricots also thrive. In the Poltava country

fruit-culture is still important enough, while in the districts of

Kharkiv, Voroniz, Kursk and Chernihiv it is much less significant,

altho we find, even here, a few centers of intensive fruit-growing; for

instance, in the vicinity of the cities of Kharkiv, Okhtirka,

Bohodukhiv. In Galicia fruit-growing is not especially developed,

except in Pokutia, the vicinity of Kossiv, and the Podolian

yari-valleys, where (near Zalishchiki) even apricots and grapes are

grown.

There is a certain connection between fruit-growing and viniculture.

The northern boundary of the grape in the Ukraine, coincides

approximately with the May isotherm of +16° and reaches the 49th

parallel. This boundary line may be drawn from Zalishchiki, past

Kamianez and Katerinoslav, to Astrakhan. In places, however, the

northern boundary of the vineyards extends beyond the 50th parallel;

for example, near Bilhorod, in the Government of Kursk. Thus, the

entire southern part of the Ukraine may be considered a favorable

vine-growing region. But vine-culture has not developed in the entire

great expanse of the Southern Ukraine; it is confined to only a few

centers. In Galicia the vine is cultivated only in Zalishchiki, in

Russian-Podolia only in a few river-valleys. Somewhat greater is the

wine-production of the old Zaporog district, where both inclines of the

Dnieper valley are planted with grape-vines. In the Kherson region the

vineyards cover about 7000 hectares. The most important wine-producing

district of the Ukraine is Bessarabia, where the vineyards take up

75,000 hectares, that is, a third of the entire Russian wine-country,

and yield over 2½ million metric hundredweights of grapes annually.

From this amount usually 870,000 hl. of wine are obtained, which,

despite its fine quality, is so cheap, as a result of the poor

organization of the wine trade, that the barrel often costs more than

its contents. Vine-growing is but slightly developed in the Don region,

where 33,000 q. of grapes are obtained every year, and the familiar

sparkling wines are manufactured. In the Government of Stavropol we

find large vineyards only in the Kuma and Terek valley. In Ciscaucasia,

the vineyards cover about 19,000 hectares, and nearly 200,000 hl. of

wine (of very good quality) are obtained annually. Grapes flourish very

luxuriantly in the Black Sea region and in Tauria. Many vineyards are

found in Melitopol and Berdiansk, but the most successfully flourishing

vines are those of Crimea, where tender French and Spanish varieties

are also cultivated. Wine-growing has become an important branch of

industry for the population here. Tauria yields only 250,000 hl. of

wine annually, because of the exclusive use of raw grapes for medicinal

purposes.

Bee-culture has, since ancient times, been carried on in the Ukraine in

very close connection with fruit-growing. It is very popular thruout

the Ukraine, and in some districts of the country we rarely find a

peasant farm without several beehives. Yet the almost fabulous wealth

of honey which the Ukraine originally possessed is steadily declining.

Deforestation has limited the original forest bee-culture to the

Polissye only. The continued assimilation of meadows and steppes for

agriculture has greatly injured the Ukrainian bee industry, and

progressive bee-culture is spreading very slowly among the Ukrainians,

due to the lack of education and instruction. The chief producing

centers of honey in the Ukraine are Kuban (326,000 bee-hives), Poltava

(305,000 bee-hives), Chernihiv (283,000 bee-hives), Kharkiv (246,000

bee-hives), Kiev (242,000 bee-hives), Volhynia and Podolia (each

206,000 bee-hives). The total production of honey of the Russian

Ukraine, in 1910, amounted to 125,900 q., wax 13,700 q. (38% and 34%

respectively of the total production of the Russian Empire). In

Galicia, in 1880, the number of bee-hives was still as high as 300,000,

in 1900 only 210,000. Nevertheless, the land produced one-half of the

honey and one-eighth of the wax of the entire Austrian production

(25,000 and 350 q. respectively). The damp, cool summers of the past

decades have greatly injured the Galician bee industry, but, in very

recent years, progressive bee-culture has begun to develop strongly

here, and to increase the honey and wax production of the land.

Silkworm-culture is very slightly developed in the Ukraine, altho the

mulberry trees thrive almost everywhere in the country, and

silkworm-culture requires no great outlay in money and labor. Attempts

are being made in the Don region, Tauria, Bessarabia, Kherson,

Katerinoslav, Kharkiv, Kiev, Poltava and Chernihiv, but the silk output

is still very small. In the Government of Kiev, in 1907, barely 1,300

q. of cocoons were obtained.

CATTLE RAISING

Cattle-raising thruout the Ukraine is closely joined to agriculture.

Only in the Pontian steppes the remains of the originally extensive

cattle industry are left today. With the prevailing shortage of land,

cattle-raising is a source of industry of the greatest importance to

the Ukrainian peasantry, the most important source of ready money with

which to pay taxes and to invest in farm improvements. Unfortunately,

the Ukrainian peasantry is only beginning to understand the importance

of progressive cattle-raising and to introduce it. In Galicia, this

movement has already had a good start. In the Russian Ukraine, only the

large landowners (and they but rarely) are carrying on progressive

agriculture. On the other hand, it should be noted that only extensive

cattle-raising pays the large landowner, hence, cattle-raising by the

peasants is of incomparably higher importance in the life of every

cultured nation. For this reason, cattle-raising in the Ukraine gives

promise of a splendid future, once it is carried on by an enlightened

peasant class.

The total number of cattle in the Ukraine can hardly be estimated, even

roughly. At any rate it is considerably more than 30 million, of which

approximately four million belong to the Austrian Ukraine. Compared to

the adjacent countries, the Ukraine is very rich in cattle. The Russian

Ukraine, which comprises not quite a sixth part of European Russia,

possesses fully a third of the Russian stock of cattle; that is, about

double the amount it should have according to the size of the

territory. In like manner, the Austrian Ukraine is important for its

exports of cattle to Western Austria and Germany.

Of all the districts of the Ukraine, the relatively smallest stock of

cattle is found in Galicia, for here there are only 723 head of cattle

(116 horses, 372 horned cattle, 60 sheep, 172 hogs) for each 1000

inhabitants. The proportions are greater in the Russian Ukraine. For

every 100 of the population Volhynia has 19 horses, 32 steers, 18

sheep, 17 hogs. The corresponding numbers for Podolia are 16, 19, 17,

11; for Kiev 13, 18, 17, 10; for Kherson 29, 24, 16, 11; for Chernihiv

21, 25, 33, 16; for Poltava 14, 22, 27, 11; for Kharkiv 17, 27, 23, 10;

for Katerinoslav 25, 26, 21, 12; for Tauria 30, 28, 61, 11; for Kuban

34, 54, 80, 21.

We shall begin our survey of the cattle industry with a consideration

of horse-raising. The Ukrainian breed of horses is widely distributed

thruout the entire Dnieper region, its Chornomoric variety in the Kuban

region, its Don variety in the eastern border districts of the Ukraine.

By far the greater number of the Ukraine horses, however, are a mixed

breed, of small stature, and, despite great powers of endurance, not

particularly strong. Of the different breeds of small horses, only the

Hutzulian mountain-breed are important, because of their fine

qualities. The remaining millions of small horses rather mark the low

grade of horse-breeding than real value for the population, which, in

proportion to its economic resources, keeps entirely too many horses.

Very little is being done to raise the standards of horse-raising in

the Ukraine. Breeding-studs are kept up by the large landowners only

for the breeding of race-horses, while nothing at all is done for the

breeding of work-horses. Only in Voroniz a breed of strong

draught-horses is produced (bitiuhi), and a little is accomplished also

by the breeding-studs of Novo-Alexandrivsk (Kharkiv region) and in

Yaniv (in the Kholm country). In the Austrian Ukraine the

war-department takes care of the breeding of the Hutzulian breed of

horses with great success.

Horned cattle are of much greater importance to the Ukrainian people

than horses, and the breed is relatively much better. Thanks to the

general distribution of the native gray breed, the addition of the red

Kalmuck breed of cattle in Eastern Ukraine, and the frequent crossing

with Western European breeds accomplished thru the agency of the large

landowners, the governments and the agricultural organizations,

cattle-breeding in the Ukraine appears much more advanced than

horse-breeding. On the other hand, dairying in the Ukraine is barely in

its beginnings. Only in Galicia has a dairymen’s organization been

formed by the Ukrainian peasants, which produce ¼ million kilograms of

butter a year.

Sheep-raising in the Ukraine decreased considerably within the last

decades of the 19th Century, as a result of Australian competition.

Formerly, the Southern Ukraine was one of the most important wool

producing regions of the world. The decline of the sheep-raising

industry has been accelerated a great deal by the transformation of the

steppes into farmland. The immense flocks of sheep which roamed the

Ukrainian steppes under the care of semi-nomadic shepherds are a thing

of the past. Nevertheless, about 10 million sheep can still be found in

the Ukraine. The greatest part of them is raised in the Don region, the

Kuban region, Tauria, Katerinoslav and Bessarabia. Just as in the other

branches of live-stock-breeding, so also in the matter of

sheep-raising, the most important part is performed by the peasant. The

peasants breed chiefly coarse-wooled sheep of various breeds. These

sheep can graze three-fourths of the year out in the steppes. The large

landowners raise far less sheep, but these belong to the fine-wooled

Merino breed, the raising of which is more expensive, but also more

profitable. In very recent years the peasants have at last begun to

engage in breeding the fine-wooled varieties. Sheep-raising is very

important in the districts of Chernihiv, Poltava and Kharkiv, where, in

the year 1900, there were 3½ million sheep (3 million of which belonged

to peasants). Here the greatly renowned Reshetilov breed of sheep is

raised. The remaining districts of the Ukraine carry on very little

sheep-raising. Only in the Carpathians is it an important branch of

industry of the population. Here the coarse-wooled mountain-sheep graze

in the mountain pastures, and bring almost greater profit thru their

dairy products and skins than thru their wool.

Goats are found very rarely in the Ukraine, almost exclusively in the

Carpathian, Yaila and Caucasus Mountains. Hog-raising, however, is

perhaps the most important source of income of the poorer Ukrainian

peasantry, and as such it is common everywhere in the Ukraine, most of

all in Chernihiv, Volhynia and Kuban. Besides sty-breeding, extensive

breeding is carried on in some districts. On the lower Dnieper and

Dniester large droves of swine remain in the plavni all summer and

fall. Improved breeds of English hogs (Yorkshire, Berkshire, etc.) are

not common in the Ukraine and easily degenerate, while the most common

breeds, the Russian, the Polish and the southern curly-haired variety,

are very hard to fatten.

Camels are kept only in the southeastern steppes of the Ukraine

(Tauria, Don region, Stavropol), buffaloes only in Bessarabia, asses

and mules in Bessarabia and Tauria.

Having reached the end of our survey of cattle-raising in the Ukraine,

we must turn to poultry-raising, which constitutes one of the most

important sources of the money income of the peasantry. In view of the

truly Spartan mode of life of our peasants, very little poultry is

consumed by the breeder himself, most of it being sold to the dealers

or in the cities. The balance of the production over the local

consumption is so great that the entire Ukraine has become an exporting

region for poultry, eggs and feathers to the other districts of Russia,

to Western Austria, Germany, England, etc. From the nine governments of

the Ukraine, in 1905, over 600,000 q. of eggs were exported, 90% of

which went over the border. These Ukrainian governments yielded 40% of

the total Russian exportation of eggs, Kharkiv alone giving 8%, Kiev

5%. If we consider the remaining Ukrainian districts of Russia, we can

say, without fear of error, that all the Russian territory together

that is inhabited by Ukrainians produces more than half the Russian

output of eggs and poultry. Podolia alone, in 1908, sold nearly 3½

million fowl, Kharkiv (1906) 1¼ million. Galicia, about the year 1903,

exported annually eggs to the value of 35 million crowns [1], feathers

to the value of 3 million, and poultry to the value of 1½ million, of

which, at least, two-thirds must be credited to the Ukrainian part of

the land.

Every farmer in the Ukraine raises live-stock. The percentage of

exclusive breeders of live-stock is very small; in the Russian Ukraine,

in 1897, it was hardly 0.4%.

MINERAL PRODUCTION

Altho farming—agriculture and cattle-raising—must, for the time being,

comprise the main source of industry of the population of the Ukraine,

this blessed land does not lack other resources as well. Very great

mineral resources lie in various districts of the Ukraine; the largest

in the Donetz Plateau, in the Carpathians, and in the Caucasus. There

is little prospect, to be sure, that the Ukraine might, with the aid of

its mineral resources, become an industrial country like Germany or

England, yet there does exist some hope that it will soon be in a

position to provide its own needs in the way of industrial products.

Gold is found in the Ukraine only in traces, hardly worth mentioning,

in the gold-containing quartz of the Naholni kriaz in the Donetz

Plateau. Silver, together with lead, appears much more frequently,

chiefly in the Kuban and Terek regions of the Caucasus, where, in 1910,

about 300,000 q. of lead and silver ore were mined (73% of the total

Russian production), yielding 25.5 q. of silver (90%) and about 11,000

q. of lead (81%), and also in the Donetz region and in the Ukrainian

Carpathians of the Bukowina and Northern Hungary. The amount produced

outside of the Caucasus, on the other hand, is very insignificant. Zinc

is found only in small quantities in the Naholni kriaz. Tin, nickel,

chromium and platinum are not found anywhere in the Ukraine.

The first in the series of the more important mining products of the

Ukraine is mercury. It is obtained from the cinnabar mines of

Mikitivka, in the Donetz Plateau. Here, 842,000 q. of cinnabar were

mined in 1905, yielding 320,000 kilograms of mercury. Outside the

Ukraine, the Russian Empire has no mercury mines worthy of mention.

Copper ore is found in the Donetz Plateau, in Kherson and Tauria, in

the Bukowina and Marmarosh, yet the production is comparatively small.

Much greater is the copper production of the Caucasus, where, in 1910,

about 2,500,000 q. of copper ore (35% of the Russian production) and

81,000 q. of copper (31%) were gained.

Much more important is the manganese production of the Ukraine.

Manganese ores are gained chiefly from the oligocene strata of the

Nikopol region (on the lower Dnieper), and in Eastern Podolia. The

production for the year 1907 amounted to 3,245,000 q., or 32% of the

total Russian output and about one-sixth of the output of the world.

But all the remaining metal resources of the Ukraine disappear, as it

were, beside the enormous wealth of iron of the land. Iron ores are

found in great quantities in very many places in the Ukraine; many

deposits have not been sufficiently explored to make exploitation seem

advisable, and many, for various reasons, are not being exploited. The

iron production of the Ukraine is consequently limited to a few

centers, but in these it is of very great importance. The most

important center of iron mining is Krivi Rih (Government of Kherson)

and vicinity. The annual production here (1903–1904) amounted to 26¼

million metric hundredweights. The entire supply of iron ore at Krivi

Rih is estimated at 870 million metric hundredweights, but in the

immediate vicinity there lie much larger untouched deposits. The iron

content of the ores (red and brown iron ore) is 60–75%.

Other iron ore deposits of the Ukraine are of much less significance.

Only in the Donetz Plateau and in the vicinity of Kerch are iron ores

still mined in considerable quantities. The iron ore deposits of the

Caucasus, the brown iron ores and swamp-ores of Volhynia, of the

western Kiev country and of the Polissye, are not exploited, and in in

the Ukrainian Carpathians of the Bukowina and Northeastern Hungary,

iron mining is dying out.

The iron production of the Russian Ukraine in 1907 amounted to 39.9

million q., that is, 73% of the total Russian production. The figures

for the years following are: 1908—40.3 million q. = 74%; 1909—39

million q. = 74%; 1910—43.4 million q. = 74%; 1911—51.1 million q. =

72%. These figures show clearly enough what a wealth of iron the

Ukraine possesses, and what part the country plays as the chief

producer of iron for Russia.

We now come to the second group of mineral resources,—the mineral

fuels. In this respect, too, the Ukraine is richly supplied. The

Ukraine possesses but one coal-field in the Donetz Plateau, but this

coal-field is one of the largest and richest in Europe. Its surface

area is 23,000 square kilometers, the annual production (1911) 203

million metric hundredweights, that is, 70% of the total production of

coal of the entire Russian Empire. Then, the coal-district on the

Donetz is very rich in anthracite. In 1911, approximately 31 million

metric hundredweights of anthracite were gained here (98.5% of the

total Russian production). For coke-making, practically the only coal

that can be used in Russia is the Donetz coal. In 1911, 33.7 million

metric hundredweights of coke was gained in the Donetz region; in all

the remaining coal districts of the Russian Empire, barely 13,600 q.

From these figures we see clearly that the Ukraine, despite its general

agrarian character, possesses great supplies of coal, that

indispensable aid in modern industry. To be sure, the Ukraine takes

only seventh rank in the world’s coal production (being preceded by the

United States, Great Britain, Germany, Austria-Hungary, France and

Belgium) yet it is, nevertheless, not to be despised as a producing

district. When we consider the backward state of material culture in

Russia as a whole, the youth of the Ukrainian coal-mining industry, and

the centripetal railway tariff policy of the Russian Government, we

must come to realize that, with better conditions, a brilliant future

awaits the Ukrainian coal industry.

The brown-coal deposits of the Ukraine are as yet but slightly

explored, and, in themselves, much less important than the pit-coal

deposits. A brown-coal field of 5000 square kilometers is part of the

tertiary strata of the Dnieper Plateau (Kiev-Yelisavet coal region).

Toward the end of the past century an annual average of 82,000 q. of

brown-coal was mined here (Katerinopol, Zuraska). Just as unimportant

is the brown-coal production in the Caucasian foothills

(Batalpashinsk). In the Carpathian foothill country and in the Rostoch,

in 1901, over 1 million metric hundredweights of brown-coal was mined;

in 1905 barely one-half that amount. Notwithstanding, some importance

must be attached to the brown-coal industry in the Ukraine for the

future.

Large peat deposits are widely distributed in the Polissye, in

Volhynia, Podlakhia, Galicia, Kiev, Podolia, etc., but extremely little

is done in the way of rational exploitation. Only in the Polissye and

in Galicia (40 places in 1905) is peat cut on a large scale, altho its

importance, especially for the districts of the Ukraine, which have few

forests, should not be underestimated.

In petroleum and ozokerite the Ukraine is the richest land in Europe.

Along the great bend of the Carpathians, beginning at the Poprad Pass,

one petroleum district crowds close upon the next. They lie almost

exclusively in the Ukrainian territory of Galicia, e.g., Borislav and

Tustanovichi, which, in 1907, yielded about 86% of the Galician

petroleum output, in the Ukrainian District of Drohobich. The Galician

petroleum production in 1911 amounted to 14.9 million metric

hundredweights—(in 1907 even 17.5 million metric hundredweights), and

takes third rank in the world’s production (being outranked by Russian

Caucasia and the United States). Considerable naphtha fields are also

found in the Ukrainian sub-Caucasian country, where, in 1910, near

Hrosni and Maikop, 12.6 million metric hundredweights of petroleum were

gained. From the eastern tip of Crimea and the Taman peninsula to the

Caspian Sea immense treasures of petroleum are hidden.

The only place in the world where ozokerite is found in large

quantities is Eastern Galicia. In 1885 Borislav yielded 123,000 q. of

this rare mineral. The unexampled wastefulness in mining accounts for

the fact that, in 1911, Borislav together with other small

sub-Carpathian mines (Dsviniach, Starunia, Truskavetz) yielded barely

19,400 q. of ozokerite. Ozokerite is also found in the Ukrainian

sub-Caucasus country, but in inconsiderable quantities.

Quite as important as the iron, coal and petroleum deposits of the

Ukraine, are its salt deposits. The Ukraine has three districts of

salt-production—the Carpathian foothills, the Donetz Plateau, and the

Pontian-Caspian salt-lake and liman region. The sub-Carpathian

salt-mines and salt-works of Galicia (Latzke, Drohobich, Stebnik,

Bolekhiv, Dolina, Kalush, Delatin, Lanchin, Kossiv) all lie within

Ukrainian national territory, with the single exception of Vielichka

and Bokhnia. In 1911 Galicia produced about 1,440,000 q. of rock salt,

most of which, to be sure, must be credited to Vielichka and Bokhnia.

On the other hand, the 1,690,000 q. of manufactured salt and brine were

produced mainly in the Ukrainian part of Galicia. In 1908 the salt

production of the Ukrainian part of Galicia amounted to only 540,000 q.

In the Donetz region there are immense deposits of rock-salt in the

vicinity of Bakhmut (e.g., Branzivka with a deposit of pure rock-salt

100 meters deep). Here, in 1911, about 4.9 million metric

hundredweights of rock-salt were mined (86% of the total Russian

rock-salt production) and the rich salt-springs and salt-lakes

exploited besides. In the Ponto-Caspian region first place is held by

the salt-lakes and limans of Crimea, then follow the limans of the

Kherson region (Knyalnik, etc.), the Manich lakes, etc. The amount

produced vacillates between 3⅓ and 5¾ million metric hundredweights a

year, and depends largely on the degree of dryness and heat of the

summer season. The total salt production of the Russian Ukraine in 1907

attained 10 million metric hundredweights, or 53% of the production of

the entire Russian Empire.

Nitre salts are found in great quantities only in the Ukrainian

sub-Carpathian country. In 1901 the amount produced was about 179,000

q.; in the year of 1908 it decreased to 121,000 q.

Besides the above-mentioned most important treasures of the soil,

minerals less important, but yet noteworthy, are found in the Ukraine.

In Podolia and the adjoining border strips of Bessarabia there lie some

rich deposits of phosphorites (70–75% phosphoric acid), out of which,

in 1907, over 114,000 q. (72% of the total Russian production) were

mined. In the districts of Katerinoslav, Kherson, Poltava, Chernihiv,

Kiev, Volhynia, in 1907, over 216,000 q. of kaolin were mined. Outside

of the Ukraine no kaolin is found in Russia. Good pottery clays are

found thruout the Ukraine, mostly around Kiev, Chernihiv and Poltava.

Fireproof clays occur in the Donetz Plateau, slate in the Zaporoze

(Katerinoslav), lithographic stone in Podolia (near Kamianez and

Mohiliv), graphite (in inconsiderable quantities, to be sure) in

Volhynia, on the Sluch River, near Krivi Rih (Kherson), in the

districts of Kiev and Katerinoslav, mineral paints near Lissichansk

(Donetz region), Krivi Rih, and Yelisavet (Kherson), Stari Oskol

(Kursk). Sulphur is obtained on the upper course of the Kuban River,

pumice stone in the Caucasus, rotten-stone near Svenihorodka (Kiev).

Mill-stones are obtained in many places, the best variety near Hlukhiv

(Chernihiv), whetstones especially in the Poltava region and in the

Devonian region of Galician-Podolia (Terebovla). Chalk is widely

distributed in Podolia, Volhynia and Kharkiv, gypsum in Podolia and

Pokutia (beautiful alabasters), as well as in the Donetz region.

Building-stones, lime, sand, loam are found everywhere in the Ukraine

and are of good quality. The most fit for masonry work are the devonian

sandstone of Podolia, the granite gneisses of the Dnieper Plateau, and

the old eruptive formations of Volhynia.

From this short survey of the mineral resources of the Ukraine, we

perceive that the Ukraine, altho in this respect it does not compare

with the countries of Western and Central Europe, yet does produce a

great deal, and after a thoro change in the political and cultural

conditions, should be able to occupy an important place in the world’s

production of mineral wealth. At present the Ukrainian people

contributes only the poorly-paid labor, while the profit falls to the

foreign rulers.

INDUSTRY

The industry of the Ukraine is now in an important stage of transition.

The originally very important home industries which, until recently,

satisfied all the needs of the peasantry, cannot endure the competition

with the factory system of large-scale industry, which is penetrating

more and more deeply into those regions of the Ukraine that lie

farthest from the highways of the world’s trade. Home industry is

declining irresistibly, factory industry is developing more and more,

and, altho the latter is still young and is retarded, in the textile

branches, by the centralization of industry at Moscow, still the

Ukraine (especially the southern part) is on the way to becoming the

most important industrial district of all Russia.

Ukrainian home industry is just as old and of as high a grade as all

the popular culture of the Ukrainians—this typical primitive

agricultural people. The products of Ukrainian home industry are

characterized above all by their great solidity and durability. Their

distinguishing feature is in the original ornamentation on all objects,

even those destined for every-day use, noticeable particularly in the

products of the textile, wood-carving and pottery industries. Anyone

who knows Ukrainian home industry is overcome by a sad feeling when he

perceives that this industry, which may really be called a fine art,

will soon be a thing of the past. The foreign rulers of the Ukraine are

hostile, or at best indifferent, to Ukrainian home industry, and all

efforts of the Ukrainians to promote their very vital native home

industry are hindered at every turn. The middlemen ruthlessly exploit

the artisan, whose earnings are a mere pittance, insufficient even for

the contented Ukrainian. More and more of those who work at a trade are

turning their backs upon their thankless occupations, if they can only

find a means of subsistence at something else.

The most important branch of Ukrainian home industry is weaving. It is

not confined only to the weaving of coarse, very durable kinds of linen

and cloth; for very fine, sometimes really artistically ornamented

tablecloths, towels and handkerchiefs, fine woolens, decorative fabrics

with inwoven patterns, gold and silver thread, carpets and tapestries,

too, come out of the primitively equipped workshops of the Ukrainian

weavers. Under very difficult working conditions, with the most

primitive means, genuine works of art are frequently created. For all

that, the artistic weaver must yield place to factory goods, even in

the Ukraine, and the home weaving industry is surely hurrying toward

extinction.

Yet, to this day, thanks to the persistence of the people in preserving

their national costume, the weaving industry is still so widespread

thruout the Ukraine that there is hardly a hamlet where there are not

some weavers by trade, or at least such persons as carry on weaving as

an avocation. Home weaving is at its height in the districts of

Poltava, where it occupies 20,000 families (1902), Chernihiv and

Kharkiv. Its chief centers are Krolevetz and vicinity, Sinkiv,

Mirhorod, Zolotonosha (wool-weaving). In Galicia, the entire Ukrainian

Pidhirye is famous for its home weaving industry; in the mountains it

is the neighborhood of Kossiv, in the low country the districts of

Horodok, Komarno, Halich, Busk, etc., which are important in this

connection. The most beautiful carpets and tapestries, worked in

colors, come from the districts of Mirhorod and Sinkiv (Poltava),

Olhopol, Balta, Yampol, Bratzlav (Podolia), Sbaraz, Buchach, Kossiv

(Eastern Galicia).

Tailoring is nowhere developed to large proportions, altho no place,

not even the smallest village, is without it. In Poltava, tailoring and

cap-making occupies over 10,000 families.

Rope-making is very common thruout the Ukraine, mostly in the districts

of Poltava, Kiev (Lissianka) and in Galicia (Radimno). Nets are made in

the district of Lokhvitzia (Poltava) and Oster (Chernihiv) on a large

scale.

After the textile industry comes the wood-working industry. It is

common, everywhere in the Ukraine, the steppe country alone excepted.

Almost every Ukrainian peasant of the Carpathian Mountains, of the

Polissye, Volhynia, Kiev, Chernihiv, knows the carpenter trade. The

best carpenters are the Hutzulians, who, independently, without drawn

plans, build churches of fine style, even for the most distant villages

of the low country.

Ship-building is carried on chiefly in the Polissye (Mosir, Petrikiv,

Balazevichi on the Pripet, and particularly Davidhorodok on the Horin).

On the Dnieper River, ships are built at Horodnia, small sea-vessels in

Nikopol, Oleshki, Hola Pristan, Kherson; on the Don in Osiv (Azof). On

the Dniester, river-ships are built in Zuravno, Halich, Zvanetz,

Mohiliv, Yampol.

Cabinet-making, altho in general but slightly developed, still supplies

the demand of the peasantry and the common city-dwellers. Artistic

cabinet-making is carried on in the Hutzul country (Kossiv, Yavoriv,

Richka, Viznitza), where, besides furniture, various kinds of woodwork,

decorated with artistic carvings and with the beautifully

conventionalized specifically Hutzulian bead and brass-wire ornaments

are produced, e.g., canes, boxes, picture-frames, etc. The furniture

industry is common in the District of Cherkassia (Kiev) and in the

entire Poltava country. Here, too, beautiful and durable wooden chests

are made. Wooden spoons are produced in the districts of Poltava

(Kalaidintzi), Kiev (Chornobil, Hornostapol), in the Hutzul country

(Porohy, Yavoriv), in the Rostoche region (Yavoriv, Vishenka), and

smoking-pipes of wood in the Poltava region (Velika Pavlivka).

Cooperage and the making of wooden vessels is common everywhere, but it

is most extensive in the districts of Poltava (3,700 families), Kharkiv

(Okhtirka, Kotelva), Polissye (Mosir), Kiev (District of Radomishl),

Chernihiv, Volhynia and the Hutzul country.

Wagon-making and the making of sleds and wooden agricultural implements

has its chief center in the Poltava country, where it occupies over

2400 families (Districts of Sinikiv, Lubni, Hadyach). In the Kharkiv

country this industry is important about Starobilsk, Bohodukhiv, Isium,

Kupiansk, as well. In Ardon (Government of Chernihiv) beautiful

carriages are produced and in Tarashcha (Government of Kiev) the

world-renowned tarantas.

The shingle industry, charcoal-burning, pitch and potash-making are met

with only in the Carpathians and in the Polissye region. Yet, not so

long ago, these comprised one of the most important branches of

industry of the forest-dwellers. Basket-weaving is especially developed

in the Poltava region (about 1000 families, chiefly in the Districts of

Lokhvitzia and Kupiansk), to some degree also in Podolia (Districts of

Litin and Vinitza), Kherson, Kiev, Polissye about Mosir. Sieves are

made everywhere the wood industry is established. Bast shoes are made

only in the Polissye region.

Among the branches of industry in which mineral substances are used,

pottery takes first rank. Thanks to great deposits of splendid pottery

clay, the Ukrainian pottery industry developed very early and now

stands upon a very high plane. Its products usually have fine form and

beautiful ornamentation. Pottery is best developed in the Poltava

region, especially in the Districts of Mirhorod, Sinkiv (well-known

center of Oposhnia), Romen and Lokhvitzia. In the Chernihiv country

pottery is almost as important, especially in the vicinity of Horodnia,

Krolevetz, Hlukhiv (Poloshki and Novhorod Siversky). In the Kharkiv

region we find large pottery works in the regions of Valki, Lebedin,

Okhtirka, Bohodukhiv, Isium; in the Kiev country about Chihirin, Uman,

Cherkassia, Svenihorodka, Kaniv, in Podolia about Mohiliv, Ushitza,

Yampol, and Letichiv. In Galicia the Rostoche region (Potilich,

Hlinsko, etc.), Podolia (Chortkiv, Borshchiv, Kopichintzi, etc.), and

especially the Hutzul country (Kolomia, Kossiv, Pistin, Kuti) are

renowned for pottery products. In other regions of the Ukraine pottery

is less developed.

The brick-making industry is actively growing all over the Ukraine, and

the introduction of tile-covered brick buildings has led to the

formation of numerous peasant organizations, for the purpose of making

these building-materials.

The stone-cutting industry is carried on on a large scale only in the

region of Odessa, Olexandrivsk (Kamishevakha) and Bakhmut.

The metal-working industry is, in general, not highly advanced. Only

the blacksmith trade is carried on everywhere and shows a fine

development, especially in the Southern Ukraine. In the village

smithies in Kherson, Katerinoslav and Tauria, even complicated

agricultural machines are often made. The production of iron ploughs

has for its centers the districts of Starobilsk (the village of

Bilovodsk produces on the average 3½ thousand ploughs a year), Isium

and Valki of the Kharkiv country, in the Chernihiv country (districts

of Starodub and Sosnitza), in the Poltava country (Zolotonosha and

vicinity). Artistic brass-work is made by the Hutzuls of the Kossiv

region (Brusturi, Yavoriv, etc.).

The utilization of animal raw-materials plays an important part in the

home industry of the Ukraine. Sausage-makers are found in all the towns

of the Ukraine, especially those of the left half, and their products

enjoy a good reputation, even beyond the borders of the land. Tanning

and fur-manufacturing flourish in the Ukraine. Ukrainian workmen have

had no small share in earning world-renown for the Russian leather

industry. The chief centers of this home industry lie in the districts

of Chernihiv (in the regions of Chernihiv, Koseletz, Krolevetz),

Poltava (about Sinkiv, Poltava, Reshetilivka with its famous furriery,

Pereyaslav, Kobeliaki), Kharkiv (about Okhtirka, Valki, Isium, Sumi).

In the Government of Voroniz, the village of Buturlinivka is noted for

its leather industry. Shoemaking engages over 9000 families in Poltava

(districts of Sinkiv, Kobeliaki, Romen, Konstantinohrad, etc.). In the

region of Kharkiv, the towns of Okhtirka and Kotelva are the main

centers of the shoemaking industry, in the Chernihiv country the

regions of Novosibkiv, Borsna and Oster. In the region of Voroniz

(districts of Bobrivsk, Biriuch, Valuiki) there are over 12,000

shoemakers. In the Ukrainian part of Kursk the chief centers are the

districts of Sudza (5000 shoemakers, 3000 of them in Miropilia alone)

and Hraivoron. In Galicia we find a strongly developed shoemaking and

tanning industry in Horodok, Kulikiv, Busk, Uhniv, Stari Sambir,

Ribotichi, Nadvirna, Buchach, Potik, etc.

The horn industry, especially the making of horn combs, appears in

Mirhorod and Sinkiv, in Kharkiv and about Sumi.

Of the numerous other branches of home industry in the Ukraine the

organized (guild) painters of sacred pictures, of whom there are over

300 families in the Poltava region, may be mentioned in passing.

So much for home industry. The factory industry of the Ukraine is still

in its infancy. Notwithstanding, it is already producing so much,

despite its youth, that Southern Ukraine, in particular, is on the way

to becoming the most important industrial center of all Russia.

Large-scale production in the Ukraine is carried on almost exclusively

by foreign (Russian, Jewish, English, French and Belgian)

capitalists—the Ukrainians contribute only the poorly-paid labor.

Ukrainian large-scale industry must wage a hard battle against the

economic policy of the Russian Government, which aims to stop the

declining preponderance of the Moscow and St. Petersburg centers of

industry, and to prevent the industrial rise of the south.

The total value of the industrial output of the Russian Ukraine, in

1908, was approximately 870 million rubles, or 19% of the total Russian

large-scale production. The production of the Austrian Ukraine amounts

to not even one-tenth of this amount. The main centers of large-scale

production are Katerinoslav (166.2 million rubles), Kiev (143.5),

Kherson (127.5), and Kharkiv (98.7). Ukrainian large-scale industry

concerns itself chiefly with the manufacturing of the mineral products

of the land and the preparation of foods. The textile industry is

artificially suppressed in the interests of the Central Russian

industrial districts.

The cotton industry is confined to only a few small factories in the

Don region (Rostiv, Nakhichevan) and Katerinoslav (Pavlokichkas). The

woolen industry is less limited (Chernihiv country, especially Klinzi,

then Kharkiv, Kiev, the Don region, Volhynia). The linen and hemp

industry is well developed only in the Chernihiv country (Pochep,

Mhlin, Starodub, Novosibkiv) and in Kherson (Odessa) jute factories are

also found. The clothing industry is worthy of mention only in Kherson

and the larger cities of Eastern Galicia.

Of the many branches of the food industry, the first to be mentioned is

the manufacture of sugar. The sugar refineries of the Ukraine, more

than 200 in number (most of them in the territories of Kiev, Kharkiv,

Podolia, Kherson), produce annually (1904) over 6.6 million metric

hundredweights of raw sugar and 3.9 metric hundredweights of refined

sugar. These figures represent 76% and 68% respectively of the total

Russian output. It is remarkable that in the Austrian Ukraine, where

the sugar industry has the finest possibilities of expanding, it is

entirely undeveloped (only two factories). The milling industry, which,

in general, is carried on chiefly in small water and wind-mills,

possesses also some large mills operated by steam (Kharkiv, Kiev,

Poltava, Kreminchuk, Odessa, Mikolaiv, Melitopol, Lviv, Brody,

Ternopil, Stanislaviv, Kolomia, etc.). Another important industry is

alcohol-distillation, which is well advanced in all parts of the

Ukraine, but particularly in Russian and Galician Podolia (Galicia has

800 stills), Kharkiv and Kiev. The beer-brewing industry is but

slightly developed, and the only districts in which it yields a product

of some quality are Galicia and the Bukowina. Mead brewing, also a

common industry, is carried on on a large scale only in the Kharkiv

country and in Eastern Galicia. Oil-pressing is important in the

territories of Kherson (Odessa), Kiev, Chernihiv (Pochep, Novosibkiv),

in Kharkiv and in Kreminchuk. The important tobacco industry is carried

on to a considerable degree in 100 factories in the Russian Ukraine

(Kiev, Kharkiv, Odessa, Zitomir, Poltava, Kreminchuk, Romen,

Katerinoslav, Mikolaiv, etc.) as well as in three government factories

in Galicia (Vinniki, Monastiriska and Zabolotiv).

The lumber industry embraces large saw-mills in the Carpathian mountain

districts of Galicia, the Bukowina and Northeastern Hungary, as well as

long the Pripet and Dnieper Rivers (Mosir, Kreminchuk, Katerinoslav,

Kherson, etc.). The cork industry is established in Odessa, the paper

industry in Rostiv, Odessa, Kharkiv, Poltava.

The most important branch of Ukrainian large-scale industry is the

metal-industry. The Ukrainian iron industry, despite its youth, has

rapidly surpassed the Polish, Moscow and Ural industry, and would be

even more advanced if the economic policy of the Russian Government had

not taken measures for the protection of the Moscow and Ural industry

from the industrial competition of the Ukraine. Hence, the Ukrainian

metal industry must furnish chiefly semi-manufactured goods, which are

afterwards worked into finished goods in the center of the Empire.

In 1911, there were obtained in the Ukraine, 24,625,000 q. of cast

iron, that is, 67.4% of the total Russian production; in 1912 the

percentage is said to have reached 70%, while the rest, 30%, is

accredited to Poland, Great-Russia and Russian-Asia. In 1911 the

Ukraine produced 18.8 metric hundredweights (55.6% of the total Russian

production) of wrought iron and steel, and in the year 1912, it

attained the same percentage. The significance of these figures is at

once apparent.

The iron works of the Ukraine lie chiefly near Krivi Rih, in

Katerinoslav and vicinity, Olexandrivsk, the Donetz Plateau and the

adjacent districts (Yusivka, Hrushivka, Tahanroh, Mariupol, Kerch,

etc.). The nail and wire industry has its center in Katerinoslav,

machine-manufacturing in Katerinoslav, Kiev, Kharkiv, Yelisavet,

Odessa, Olexandrivsk, Mikolaiv and Berdiansk. The iron steamship

building industry has its seat in Rostiv and Mikolaiv. In Galicia we

find only a very small iron industry, and at best a few railway

supplies, factories and workshops are worthy of mention, e.g., those in

Sianik (car factory), New Sandetz and Lemberg.

Of the other branches of industry which manufacture mineral products,

the petroleum refineries must be mentioned above all, particularly

those of the Carpathian foothill country (Horlitzi, Drohobich, Kolomia)

and at the foot of the Caucasus (Hrosni). The factory industry of

pottery is carried on in Lviv and Kharkiv; porcelain and chinaware

manufacture in the Kharkiv region (Budi, Slaviansk) and in Odessa;

cement manufacture in the Black Sea region, in Odessa and in the

Bukowina; brick and tile manufacture in all the large cities of the

Ukraine. Glass manufacture, once very extensive in the forest regions

of the Western Ukraine (Rostoche, Volhynia), is now confined to the

neighborhood of Kharkiv, Horodnia and Bakhmut. Of the different

branches of the chemical industry, the manufacture of matches is

important; its seat is in the Chernihiv country near Novosibkiv, and in

the Galician sub-Carpathian country (Striy, Skole, Bolekhiv, etc.).

This does not exhaust the branches of industry of the Ukraine, but,

because of their comparative insignificance, we must desist from

describing them. Having now come to the end of our presentation of

Ukrainian industry, we have still to consider what percentage of

Ukrainians engage in industrial pursuits. According to official Russian

estimates of the year 1897, the percentage is barely 5% (in Galicia,

according to Buzek’s biased calculation, 1.4%). The smallness of the

figures would surprise us if we did not know how the Russian and Polish

nationality “make” their statistics; nevertheless, it cannot be denied

that the Ukrainian people still engage too little in industry. Among

the Ukrainians who seek their subsistence in industry, the greatest

number (14%) engage in the making of clothing; then follow, in order,

the building, metal, lumber and food industries, linen-weaving and

pottery.

TRADE AND COMMERCE

The mercantile movement in the Ukraine, as, in fact, in all of Eastern

Europe, is comparatively slight. To give an exact picture of Ukrainian

commerce is much more difficult than to describe its agricultural and

industrial production. The great exchanges of goods in the interior,

the commercial relations of the Ukraine with the other districts of

Russia and Austria-Hungary, its part in the export trade of these

states,—all this matter awaits working up on the part of competent

economists and geographers.

The Ukrainian people take but little part in the commercial activity of

their country; the Ukrainian peasant simply considers trade an

occupation very little in accord with the rank of a landed proprietor,

and the middle class has only begun in the last decades to recover from

the suppression of centuries. Hence, Ukrainian commerce lies almost

wholly in the hands of the foreign races—the Russians, Jews, Armenians

and Greeks.