Book 2 — 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.

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.

The causes of this condition are usually sought and found by the foreign (Russian and Polish) “standard-bearers of culture” in the indifference and incapacity for culture of the Ukrainians. This explanation, however, can be objected to when we recall the great commercial importance of the ancient Kingdoms of Kiev and Halich, as well as the long perseverance of the Ukrainian trade down into the 16th Century, despite its systematic suppression by the Polish Government. Naturally, the five centuries of Tatar invasion caused severe injuries to Ukrainian trade. And when the commercial activity of the Ukraine of the hetmans began to flourish in the 17th and 18th Centuries, it was systematically suppressed by the Russian Government, following the ill-fated rebellion of Mazeppa. Then we must consider the difficulties of competition with the Russians, a very talented commercial race, with the Jews, the Armenians and the Greeks. Most keenly, however, the calamitous lack of education is being felt. Wherever the education of the people is more advanced, as, for example, in Eastern Galicia, there is a revival of the commercial spirit in the Ukrainians. The Galician Ukrainians have thousands of shops, large commercial co-operative organizations (Narodna Torhovla, with seventeen branch warehouses and several hundred shops, Soyuz tohorvelnick spilok, Soyuz zbutu khudobi, etc.), with the large annual turnover (large for Galician conditions) of 25 million crowns. The enlightened peasantry of Sinevidsko and vicinity (Boiko country) carries on an active fruit-trade far beyond the Austrian borders. Even in the Russian Ukraine trade is coming to life in all places. The co-operative movement has taken such a bound in advance, in spite of the frightful illiteracy, that in 1912 there were over 2500 such organizations, while all of Russia (including the Ukraine) had 5260, and Poland only 920. From these facts we may safely conclude that, with the elevation of the grade of culture, the former commercial spirit of the Ukraine is reawakening. To be sure, the sturdy, upright nature of the Ukrainian, which abhors every form of dishonesty, will not lend to this new commercial spirit a world-conquering character, but it will, on the other hand, increase the influence of the Ukrainian merchant in the commercial world.

The present condition of commerce in the Ukraine is still very primitive; first, because of the generally low grade of culture; second, because of the very primitive traffic conditions of Eastern Europe.

The first mark of the primitive condition is probably the existence of countless annual fairs in the Ukraine—a relic of medieval trade conditions. The number of annual fairs in the Russian Ukraine exceeds 4000, altho it is far out of proportion to the great number of annual fairs in Great Russia. But out of twenty-two grand annual fairs of Russia, eleven fall to the Ukrainian territory—four in Kharkiv, two in Romny, one in Poltava, Kursk, Kolevez, Yelisavet and Sumy, respectively. In addition, there are the once famous Kiev “kontrakti” (now declining), and the smaller annual fairs in Berdichiv, Zitomir, Dubno, etc. The greatest exchanges of goods take place in the Yordan fair in Kharkiv (January 20th), and the Elias fair (August 2nd) in Poltava. Here the wholesale dealers sell their goods to the retailers (Ofenyi—Russians from the Governments of Vladimir and Slobozani—Russian sectarians, colonists from the Chernihiv country, Jewish retailers who sell in the right half of the Ukraine), who buy or supplement their stock of goods during the annual fairs. In these wholesale transactions, the so-called prassoli—Russian barterers—also engage, dealers who travel all year thru the villages of the Ukraine, exchange the wool, bristles and flax of the peasants for hardware, and sell the collected raw materials to the wholesalers. In this annual fair system, the Ukrainians have, until recently, played an important part as paid drivers, who drove the goods on their oxcarts from fair to fair. These drivers at one time formed a sort of class of their own—the “chumaki”—and even engaged independently in the trading of the Crimean salt and the dried fish of the Sea of Azof. The railroads have put an end to the former importance of the chumaki, yet the scanty length of the Ukrainian railway system prevents this carting industry from disappearing altogether. In the eighties of the past century there were counted in the districts of Poltava, Kharkiv and Chernihiv, 210,000 chumaks; in the year 1897, in Kherson, Katerinoslav, Tauria and Don, about 100,000 of these hired drivers.

The fair system of Ukrainian trade is carried on not only by means of great annual fairs, which, by the way, are decreasing in importance year by year, but also by means of an enormous number of smaller annual fairs in the cities, towns, and even villages of the Russian Ukraine, which take care of the retail trade. In the Austrian Ukraine the annual fairs (as for instance, the once famous fairs of Tarnopol, Ulashkivtzi, Czernowitz) have lost all significance since the modernization of the country’s commerce.

World-commerce has, until very recently, left the Ukraine almost untouched. This is one of the reasons why the primitive forms of commerce were able to last so long in the Ukraine. Until recently, world-commerce has taken the Ukraine merely for a producing and exporting country of raw materials, and left the supplying of local demands to the traditional forms of trade. Only within the last decades has the modern commercial organization begun slowly to take in the Ukraine. The exchanges in Kiev, Kharkiv, Odessa, Kreminchuk, Mikolaiv, Tahanroh, Rostiv, the chambers of commerce in Lviv and Brodi, are organizing the export of raw materials from the Ukraine, and the flooding of the country with the products of foreign industry is becoming more and more intensive.

In spite of all we have mentioned, the significance of the Ukraine in the internal commerce of Russia and in world-trade is very great. The natural resources of the country, its situation on the threshold of Asia and the Mediterranean world, its property of being a direct hinterland of the Black Sea, give to the Ukraine a commercial importance with which that of any other individual district of European Russia, the Baltic lands and Poland not excepted, can never compare.

In the internal commerce of Russia, the Ukraine figures, first of all, as purveyor of foodstuffs, and in Austria-Hungary the Austrian Ukraine plays the same part on a small scale. To represent these relations in figures encounters great difficulties, and the figures can be only approximate. In 1895 the Ukraine exported over 1.5 million metric hundredweights of grain to Lithuania and White Russia, about 1.7 million metric hundredweights to Poland, and about 0.9 million metric hundredweights to Central Russia. In 1905, two Ukrainian districts alone, Poltava and Kharkiv, exported over 0.7 metric hundredweights of grain to Central Russia. These figures must be much greater today. And the grain exportation of the Austrian Ukraine to the interior of Austria must be relatively as great. As a matter of fact, Galicia produces one-third of the total Austrian output of oats and wheat, and almost half the output of potatoes.

Quite as important is the Ukraine’s exportation of live-stock. In the years 1902–1904, the Ukraine exported 80,000 head of cattle to Central Russia, and the part played by Galicia as purveyor of live-stock for slaughter is well-known. Equally important is the exportation of small cattle, poultry, eggs and butter. The exportation of wool from the Southern Ukraine plays an important part in the internal commerce of Russia. The Polissye, Carpathian and Caucasus regions furnish great quantities of lumber for exportation. The mineral products of the Ukraine are used for the greater part outside the country—Caucasian and Carpathian petroleum, the iron ore of Krivi Rih, the salt, the manganese, the coal of the Donetz Plateau. Of the entire yield of coal of the Donetz basin in 1905, barely one-third was used up in the factories of this region; the other two-thirds were to serve the advancement of Central Russian industry. All these products are the object of an active export trade.

In comparison with the exports, the imports of the Ukraine cannot be very large. The imports embrace, almost exclusively, products of foreign manufacturing. In view of the general poverty and the very limited wants of the Ukrainian peasantry, these imports must be small, since home industry still covers the greatest part of the demand.

The part of the Ukraine in the external commerce of the Russian State is very important, while the Austrian Ukraine plays a very subordinate part in this respect. The ten central regions of the Ukraine furnish over 60% of the total grain export of Russia. In the customs districts of the Ukrainian part of the western border of Russia, 28.6 million rubles’ worth of goods was exported, 14.3 million rubles imported. The customs districts of the Pontian and Azof coast within the borders of the Ukraine passed 245 million rubles in exports, 64.8 million rubles in imports. Over the borders of Russian Ukraine passed 33% of the Russian exportation and only 11% of the importation. This shows us how much the Ukraine contributes to the balance of trade in favor of Russia.

Traffic in the Ukraine is very slightly developed. Altho the natural conditions for traffic are very favorable, the historical fortunes of the country took such a course that we cannot wonder at the present state of intercourse. The Ukraine was for a long time under the domination of Poland, which never cared for the condition of the roads; then the country fell under the rule of Russia, which to this day stands upon a very low level as far as traffic conditions are concerned. The Austrian Ukraine has the greatest number and the best roads, but they are found especially in Bukowina and Northern Hungary. For in Galicia, where most of the roads are under the management of the autonomous Polish authorities, the condition of the roads is sad enough.

The overwhelming majority of Ukrainian highways are unpaved. All that the Russian geographer, Krassnov, has said in general about the highways of Russia, applies in its fullest extent to the unpaved, unmacadamized roads of the Ukraine. These roads are among the worst in the world. In the summer they are enveloped in clouds of dust; in the spring and fall, as well as in rainy weather, they are strips of bottomless mud, in which even the light farm-wagon sinks to its axles. Wherever it is at all possible, vehicles drive across the fields along the roadway. Worst of all are the ways in the vicinity of and within villages and small towns. Drains and bridges are either unknown, or else there are not enough of them. The kind of roads just described are known in the entire right half of the Ukraine by the traditional name of “Polish roads.” Still worse are the cane and corduroy roads of the Polissye; riding over these a long time becomes a positive torture to the traveler. In the Hutzul country most of the roads are ordinary bridle-paths (plai), accessible only to foot passengers and bridle-horses.

In Galicia, only villages and hamlets are connected by unpaved roads; in the Russian Ukraine even large cities. Not a single macadamized road leads to cities like Poltava, Kreminchuk, Katerinoslav, Rostiv, Kherson. That such negligence of the government should cause the Ukrainian peasantry incalculable damage, and actually hinder trade and commerce, is obvious at once.

Macadamized roads are very scarce in the Ukraine as a whole. The Austro-Hungarian part of the Ukraine, altho in this respect it is far behind the cultural countries of Europe, possesses a greater absolute number of macadamized roads than the Russian Ukraine, which is ten times as large in area. All cities and towns of the Austrian Ukraine are connected by macadamized roads. Eight such roads meet at Lemberg, seven in Czernowitz, six each in Peremishl, Ternopil, Kolomia, Buchach, Horodenka, etc. In the Russian Ukraine, on the other hand, the only macadamized roads that deserve the name, are the road from Homel to Kiev, the road from Kiev to Berestia (by way of Zitomir, Novhorod-Volinsky, Rivne, with branches to Dubno and to Kremianetz, Lutzk, Kovil), the road from Tomashiv to Lublin, the road from Starokonstantiniv to Kamenetz, the road from Kursk to Kharkiv, and the mountain-road in the Yaila Mountains in Crimea. The remaining “great tracts” and “post-roads” (altho they sometimes figure as macadamized roads) are in such a miserable condition, that even in the large cities they look more like moraines than streets in a civilized city.