Flax is a
leading export product, and the Russian crop constitutes about
four-fifths of the world's supply. Lands too remote from markets for
grain-growing produce cattle and sheep, which are grown mainly for their
hides and tallow. The wool of the Don is a very coarse textile that is
much used in the manufacture of American carpets; that of the arid
plateaus of the southern country is a fine rug wool.

Agriculture in Russia is on a much lower plane than in western Europe.
Most of the land is owned in large estates. Individual farming is rare,
land tillage being usually a community affair. A village community rents
or purchases a tract of land, and the latter is allotted to the families
composing it, a part of the land being reserved for pasturage. The
business is transacted by "elders," or trustees, who exercise a general
management and supervision over the "mir," or community.

The methods of farming are not the best, and an acre of land produces
scarcely one-third as much as the same area is made to yield in other
states. The farming class, or peasantry, was in a condition of serfdom
until within a few years. Poverty unfits them to compete with farmers of
western Europe; moreover, the laws of land ownership and tenure also
serve to discourage farming.

The metal and mineral resources are very great. Iron ore is abundant,
and the yearly output of both is greatly increasing. There are extensive
deposits in southern Russia, in the Ural Mountains, and in Poland. Coal
of good quality is plentiful, and coal mining is encouraged by a heavy
tariff on the foreign coal that enters regions where the home product is
available. The most productive coal-fields are those of the lower Don
River and of Poland.

Gold is obtained in various parts of Siberia and in the Ural Mountains,
but scarcely enough is mined for the requirements of coinage. Copper is
also mined in the Ural and Caucasus Mountains. More than nine-tenths of
the world's supply of platinum is also obtained in the Ural Mountains.
The petroleum fields of Transcaucasia have a yearly output a little
greater than those of the United States.

The forest area is surpassed only by the timber belt of North America,
both of which are in about the same latitudes. This area, within a very
few years, is destined to be the chief lumber supply of all Europe.
Moreover, the forests, the grain-growing lands, and the iron and coal
constitute national resources which are surpassed in