THE GRANARY OF EUROPE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 166, 13 July 1907, Page 9

THE GRANARY OF EUROPE.

(By Captain Herbert Noyes.) Under normal conditions, Russia exports annually some nine million tons of wheat, but her'total output of foodstuffs is far greater. Great Britain alone relieves her of £12,000,000 worth of cereals each year, and would probably be a customer on a far larger scale if the production were increased. And very shortly it will be. For even the huge territory of European Bussia is becoming overcrowded and cjuite ipadequate to meet the demands of an ever-increasing population with a birth rate in the vicinity of two millions odd. Wherefore., within the last ten or twelve years the Government has become keenly alive to the necessity of providing an outlet for this superfluous population, and, after the first experimental parties of-emigrants had been sent to Siberia; the authorities quickly realised that the possibilities of that country, as a grain-pro-ducing and pastoral land, were practically unlimited. Thus it is that Siberia no longer bears the-stigma naturally attached to a land reserved solely for the saddest of all purposes, and with the cessation of all convict settlement within its boundaries —Saghalien is a separate colonjr — the

world at large has modified its views of the characteristics of a country that has so long been practically unknown to any but its rulers.

Siberia is not the desolate, barren land it has for centuries been represented to be. It is, as the "writer, who has traversed it from the Amur to the Ural Mountains, can testify, a country of unbounded agricultural possibilities, well watered, free from pests and covered in its centre and south with millions of acres of virgin herbage and rich grass. The hand of man alone is lacking to make the wilderness blossom like a garden, and already the railway route is dotted with flourishing fields of wheat, oats and barley. From our point oflsview, it has climatic draw-backs, but to the hardy peasants from the scarcely less inclement wastes of Russia, no such objections exist. The cold is undeniable, but Siberia is a windless land, otherwise human life would be unsupportable in many of its provinces. As it is, the dry cold and the utter absence of humidity in the atmosphere result in perfect healthfulness. The fine physique and rosy cheeks of the people already settled there bear witness to that. •- The dislocation of economic conditions consequent to the late war has, of necessity, restricted the wholesale immigration which, for some years past it has

been the policy of the Czar ajjd his advisers to encourage in every possible way. But the social upheaval which commenced so soon as peace was concluded has had, if anything, a contrary effect, and immigrants are at this day pouring- into Siberia as they were in 1901-1902, when 600,00 men women and children passed through Toheliabink —the gateway of the_ steppes—on the way to their new homes. There is room for them and to spare. ■ The area of Eastern and Western Siberia is. roughly, 8,400,000 square miles; the districts of the Amur 2,500,000 more; these figures do not include the acreage of Caucasia, TransCaucasia and Turkestan. Expressed in mere figures the total sum conveys little ' meaning to the ordinary man, but when j it is realised that Siberia means jone- : thirteenth of the dry surface of the '• globe and is one and a-half times larger j than Europe, the vastness of its size j becomes more easily grasped. Much of this tremendous area is, however, next to worthless. None the less it has been ascertained that at least 30,000 square miles in the vicinity of the TransSiberian railway is fit for immediate settlement, cultivation and stock breeding. Many miles to the southward • lie stretches of desert, sandy wastes Sotted ■with scant herbage and inhabited only by wandering nomads who are continually., on .the move, gut even ia £hese

inhospitable regions- the same trices have succeeded in breeding a type of horse unequalled in the world for hardihood and endurance. And the wide steppes, similar in character to the pampas of South America, or, in a lesser degree, to parts of the South African veldt, reach down to the very borders of this desert, whilst to the north they stretch in unbroken expanse to the dense forests of the higher latitudes. Some 82,000 square miles of birch and larch forest clothe this portion of the Russian Empire, a tract of country described by the few people who have visit,ed it as terrible in its loneliness and impressive beyond human imagination in .its awe-inspiring gloom. Still further, nearer to the Arctic Circle, the woods dwindle in size and extent, shrinking, as it were, from the blighting breath of the Frost. King, un.til. finally, they disappear or become mere stunted bushes in the land of perennial winter. Into the bla.c£ darkness of these regions the sun never penetrates; it is the Ultima Thule of desolation, where the Arctic wolf and bear can alone wrest a precarious livelihood from and at the cost of the weaker fauna. A member of the unavailing search party that sought traces of the ill-fatea Andre, describes this Tundra as the material realisation of Dante's frozen hell. jßut this is beside jJae. jjhe

country is large enough'without takinginto account these unprofitable wastes. A glance at a map will plainly show the extent of country lying. between the fiftieth and sixtieth degrees of latitude, and it is from within those limits that , Europe of the future will draw a luge proportion of foodstuffs. - But It wjll. take some time. The Russian moujik is not an ideal colonist, and requires a good deal of fostering at the hands of a paternal Government. His Tailway faxes are advanced as well as those of his family; tools, seed and monetary assistance are provided for him, and the authorities only "ask that he should pay all loans by what he wrings from the soil. The terms of repayment are extended over an indefinite number of years, the industrious worker is pressed, and his way is made easy when and wherever possible.- When one is apt to criticise harshly the Russian Government and all its works, it should be remembered to its credit that the lenient treatment and unstinted assistance accorded to the Siberian emigrants is without parallel among pfjier nations. ' For those individuals who .disregard, all hardships when in pursuit of their favourite amusement, Siberia is a sportsman's paradise. Bears, wolves, reindeer, elk, lynx, fox, roebuck, wild sheep, marmots, ermine, sable, otter and innumerable varieties of squirrel, panther and the smaller felidae abound. Sooner br later they will disappear, of course. Even now they . are becoming appreciably fewer, and similarly the march of civilisation will no doubt result in the retirement of the Buryats, Kirgla, and other kindred tribes of nomads, who, even now, are gradually giving way to the advance of the white man. When the six thousand miles of rail which connects St. Petersburg . with Vladivostok runs through a zone of cultivated and closelysettled country, these picturesque vagrants will have to be sought" elsewhere.