Note 86 — Chapter XLIII
Reading edition
The Bulgarian colonies, the most prosperous of all those that have been established in the Boudjiak, numbered in 1840, 10,153 families, comprising 32,916 males, and 29,314 females. The surface of their lands has been estimated at 585,463 hectares, of which 527,590 are fit for tillage and hay crops, and 57,873 are waste. The Bulgarian colonists pay the crown 50 rubles per family. The corn harvest amounted, in 1839, to 211,337 tchetverts. They have contrived to preserve among them the breed of zigai sheep, the long strong wool of which is in demand in the East, and formed, previously to the Russian occupation, the chief wealth of the Bessarabians: they now possess about 343,479.