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Show RUSSIA TO RECLAIM DESERT Good Pasture Lands Are Destroyed at the Rate of One Hundred Thousand Thous-and Acres a Year. The shifting sands of Astrakhan and the measures taken by the Russian government to deal with this problem form the subject of a memoir by J. G. Flrstov, published In Petrograd, observes ob-serves the Scientific American. Ten million acres of the province in question ques-tion are covered with shifting sands formed during the nineteenth century and subsequently. These sands have been spreading at the rate of 100,000 acres a year, the result being the transformation trans-formation of good pasture land Into a barren waste. The principal cause Is over grazing; flocks and herds are kept so long in one place as to result In the complete destruction of the turf. Poor agricultural methods are also responsible. respon-sible. About the beginning of the present pres-ent century the government took measures meas-ures of control and reclamation, and between 1904 and 1909 an area of about 46,000 acres was brought under cultivation. culti-vation. In 1013 a special service was ordered to deal with the question. The province was put under the charge of .a chief forestry officer and divided Into six districts. In each of which a subordinate official was appointed to superintend the work. At the time of writing good progress has been made in planting soil binders and growing herbaceous crops, but It was still problematical prob-lematical whether the province was adapted to the establishment of forests. |