BREEDING AND THE BUTTER INDUSTRY IN SIBERIA

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1726, 29 March 1905, Page 62

BREEDING AND THE BUTTER INDUSTRY IN SIBERIA

Cereals and other plants cultivated in the southern provinces of Siberia are not the only agricultural productions of the country. For the rest the surfaces occupied by these plants, although estimated ht several million hectares, only constitute the smallest portion of tho immense territory actually used by Siberian agriculture. The most important pare of this territory is covered by vast pasture lands, which, thanks to tho abundant; quantities of fodder which they produce, allow oi maintaining the numerous draught beasts necessary for the cultivation of the land, the conveyance of men and goods, a.s also a large number of beasts the products from which are consumed on the spot, or else made use of in (Siberian agriculture. Siberia, considering its very small population, possesses an exceedingly large number oi cattle. Thus, in the district between Ural and the Baikal, l lie re are reckoned per hundred inhabitants, 70 houses (say three per adultman), 80 liorncd beasts (’bree cows per family), and 100 sheep, goats, anil pigs.

These proportions are larger still in the: Zanbaikal, and especially amongst the Zirghzes, whose herds do not consist) of less than fourteen million animals.. The Siberian cattle possess qualities of their own ; the horses are small in. size, and have not much of an appearance, but they are noted for their even temperaments, their endurance and rapidity of pace. The beasts which supply butcher’s meat give an article which, while not of the best quality, is very good indeed. As regards the cows, they give an .averago quantity of very good milk, very rich in fatty matter. Sheep, on the contrary, give wool of inferior quality. Breeding is carried on in Siberia in a very primitive manner. In the summer all the beasts of the commune are assembler in herds of several hundreds in the enclosed pasture lands which surround the villages. Hi the winter they are sent into the stables, where hay and straw form their exclusive food. Of the different products of

(Siberian breeding, butter is certainly the most important, the largest trade being done with it. The butter industry has only existed in Siberia about ten years, but it has made great strides there. 'Confined first of all to the vicinity of Ivourgan and Omsk, it has reached the districts traversed by the Obi and the Yenissei. The establishment at various points of purchasing centres, and model butter factories, due to the industrial initiative of the Danish, English, and Germans, has very largely contributed to +he extension of this industry. The Russian Government has also favoured its development by sending dairy instructors into the breeding centres, and by encouraging by means of loans the organisation of co-operative butter factories. A fairly large number of these factories has been erected, but the private butter factories still seem to predominate. Nearly all the butter produced in Siberia is exported. It is sold to foreign companies established at Ivouvgan, Omsk, and other tow ns, and sent by special trains to Riga and Revel. From there it is consigned to Copenhagen, London, and Hamburg. It is England which consumes the largest quantity. The Russo-Japanese war has naturally had the effect of restricting supplies; but even now two trains, specially for butter, leave Ivourgan for Riga every week. . i. n While in 1898 there were only 140 butter factories, sending abroad 2,456,700 kilos of butter, during the year 1903 more than 2000 butter factories bave exported nearly forty million kilos of butter, three-quarters of which is produced by Eastern Siberia. The principal merit of Siberian butter consists in its good preserving quality, which, according to certain experts, is due to the kind of food the milch cows receive. It is owing to this peculiar quality, much more than to the other qualities of this product, that it has obtained the great success it has met with in the foreign market.