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, [[265]]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. [[266]]
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. [[267]]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.