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Show Russia Importing Grain Russian journalists appear, says the London Telegraph, to be just now painfully exercised by the announcement that two American steamers laden with grain have entered the port of Revel??? for the purpose of discharging their cargoes, a circumstance hitherto without precedent in the annals of Russian commerce. That Russia would never need to import cereals from foreign countries has heretofore been a firmly established article of popular faith throughout the Czar's dominions. So rapid, however, has been the falling off in productiveness exhibited in the agricultural districts of the empire, that the seemingly impossible has at length come to pass, and Northern Russia is importing wheat from the United States. It is but justice to the Russian press to acknowledge that it has been profuse of warnings with respect to the probably consequences of slovenly and unintelligent farming, persistence in old-fashioned and exploded system of cultivation, reluctance to invest capital in modern agricultural improvements, absenteeism and other leeches?? Which have practically disqualified Russian grain growers from competing for foreign custom with their transatlantic rivals. But Russian buys and peasant farmers alike were so immoderately possessed by the conviction that Russian was the predestined granary of Europe that they calmly ignored these salutary monitions. They are now stricken with consternation and amazement by proof positive, such as is afforded by the importation of American grain into Revel???, that the cereal yields of Northern and Central Russia no longer suffice to meet the consumptive requirements of the native population. Germany, too is giving to America the preference over Russia for what grain she finds it necessary to import from abroad, on the reasonable grounds that the American wheat is at once cheaper and better quality than the Russian. On the whole, Russian agriculture is just now at an extremely low ebb, and its future promises to prove even gloomier than at present. |