The climate is very varied, there being levels of eternal snow and of burning sand. The chief occupations of the colonists are cattle farming and all branches of agriculture. A well-watered farm gives, as a rule, a rich and abundant harvest.
Wheat is sown (from 7 to 10 poods the dessiatina), rye oats (8 to 14 poods), millet, peas, potatoes, maize, sunflowers, mustard, flax, hemp, poppy, buckwheat, etc. And the harvest gives wheat up to 150 poods the dessiatina, oats give from 70 to 120 poods the dessiatina, and barley 90 poods. In the districts of Pishpek, Jarkent and Verney rice is sown, and gives 100 roubles the dessiatina clear profit. Orchards are cultivated almost everywhere with success.
Prices
| Wheat | 30 to 80 copecks the pood. |
| Rye | 30 to 60 ” ” |
| Oats | 30 to 60 ” ” |
| Barley | 30 to 70 ” ” |
| A horse costs | 45 roubles |
| A cow costs | 25 to 30 roubles |
| A camel costs | 50 roubles |
| A sheep costs | 3 to 5 roubles |
| Labour costs | from 70 copecks to 1 rouble 50 copecks the day. |
GOVERNMENT GRANTS
(a) In the measure of 100 roubles the family is given in the districts of Pishpek and Verney, except for certain special districts where colonisation proceeds without loans. A hundred roubles are also given to settlers in the district of Kopal, excepting the survey of Altin-Emel and certain plots in the valley of the River Chu and also in the neighbourhood of the Lake Issik-Kul.
(b) In the measure of 200 roubles the family in the northern parts of the district of Jarkent and in the survey of Altin-Emel in the district of Kopal.
In the southern and eastern frontier region half the loan is reckoned as not returnable to the Government.
In the artificially watered tracts in the districts of Verney and Pishpek no grants are made.
Beyond personal loans special grants are made for purposes of supplying general needs, for the building of schools, churches, village barns, mills, brick factories and irrigation works. For the poorer districts the Government takes upon itself the burden of building schools and churches, and hundreds of thousands of roubles are spent annually for this purpose. The Government also sinks wells for the colonists.