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 [[260]]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 [[261]]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, [[262]]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 [[263]]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 [[264]]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.