1 In a resolution based on the agriculrural inspector's report of 1890, the island commandant wrote: "At last there exists a docu- ment which is perhaps far from being perfect, but is firmly based on observed data gathered by a specialist and offered without the dcsire to please any special interests." He calls this report "the first step in the right direction." The implication is that all the reports prior to 1890 were written with the desire to pleasc spe- cial interests. General Kononovich adds that "idle fabrications" were the sole source of information on agriculture in Sakhalin before 1 890.
The official agronomist on Sakhalin is given the tide of In- spector of Agriculture. It is a Class IV position with a good sal- ary. The present inspector made his report after spending two years on the island. This is a short work which does not contain the author's personal observations, and his conclusions are not distinguished by their clarity. The report does, however, supply some brief information about meteorology and flora, and presents an adcquatc picrure of narural conditions in the popoulated parts of the island. This report has been published and will probably be included in the literarure relating to Sakhalin. As for the agronomists who served earlier, they were all very unforrunate. I have already mentioned M. S. Mitsul several times. He had been an agronomist, later he became a director, and he finally died of angina pectoris before the age of forty-five. I was told that another agronomist attempted to prove that agriculrure was impossible on Sakhalin, and sent out a fl^^ of documents and telegrams, and it appears that he suffered a severe nervous disorder. People now recall him as having been an honest and knowledgeable person, but insane. The third director of the Agronomy Department was a Pole: he was discharged by the island commandant and there was a scandal rare in official annals. By an official order his travel expenses were allowed only on condition that "he produce an agreement with the driver of a sleigh taking him to Nikolayevsk." Obviously the administration feared that after receiving his travel expenses the agronomist would continue to remain on the island (Order No. 349, 1888). Father Irakly told me about the fourth agronomist, a German, who did nothing and knew hardly anything at all about agronomy. Once, after an August frost which killed off the grain, he drove to Rykovskoye, called a meeting and pompously demanded, "What for did you have a frost?" A most intelligent man stepped out of the crowd and said, "We do not know, your excellency; probably it was brought about by God's grace." Thc agronomist was completely satisfied with this answer, mounted his carriage and departed for home, conscious that he had performed his dury.
A correspondent writes in Vladivostok ( 1886), No. 43: "A newly arrived agronomist on Sakhalin (a Prussian subject) or- ganized and opened a Sakhalin agricultural exhibition on Octo- ber 1 in his own honor, the exhibitors being the settlers of the Alexandrovsk and Tymovsk districts, as well as the prison gar- dens. . . . The grain seeds exhibited by the settlers werc not ex- ccptional unless you include among the yakova seeds grown on Sakhalin other seeds mixed with them which have been ordered from the famous Grachev [Yefim Andreyevich Grachev, 1826-77, a renowned agronomist] for sowing. Scnler Sychov of the Ty- movsk district exhibited wheat with a certificate from the Tymovsk administration that he has a current harvest of sevenry poods. He was charged with perpetrating a fraud for exhibiting only carc- fully selected kernels of wheat." Issue No. 50 of the same news- paper also describes the exhibition: '"Everyone was astonished by the extraordinary vegetables: for example, a hcad of cabbage weighing twenty-two and a half pounds, radishes weighing thir- teen pounds, potatoes weighing three pounds, etc. It can safely be said that Central Europe cannot boast of better vegetables."
With the increase in population it becomes all the more diffi- cult to find suitable land. Riparian valleys covered with deciduous forests—elms, hawthorn, elders, etc.—where the topsoil is deep and fertile are rare oases among the tundras, bogs, mountains cov- ercd with burning forests, and lowlands with coniferous forests and poorly draining subsoil. On the southern portion of the island these valleys, or yelans, alternate with mountains and bogs on which the sparse vegetation differs little from the polar. Thus the vast region between the Takoye valley and Mauka, which are cultivated areas, is covered with absolutely unusable marshlands. Perhaps it will be possible to build roads through these marshes, but it is not within human power to change the grim climate. As great as the area of Southern Sakhalin obviously is, until the pres- em time only 405 desyatins of land suitable for grain fields, gar- dens and farmsteads have been discovered (Order No. 3 i 8, i 889). But the commission headed by Vlasov and Mitsul, which had studied the problem of the suitability of Sakhalin for an agricul- tural penal colony, found that in the cenual section of the island "there should be considerably more than 200,000 desyatins of land" capable of being brought under cultivation and that "ex- tends to 220,000" in the southern section.
Details are recorded in Report on the Status of Agriculture or^ Sakhalin Island in 1889 by Von Friken.
For some reason only onions have been difficult to raise up to the present time. The scarcity of this vegetablc in the exile's diet has been compensated for by wild ramson [bear garlic]. This onion-type plam with a suong garlic odor was once considered by soldiers and exiles an excellem remedy for scurvy, and we can judgc the prevalence of the disease by the hundreds of poiociss which the military and prison commands kept in stock every win- ter. They say that ramson is tasty and nutritious, but not every- one likes its odor. I felt suffocated when a man came ncar me in a room or even in the open after eating ramson.
The amount of land devoted 10 hayficlds on Sakhalin is still unknown, although the agricultural inspcctor's repon docs cite figures. No mauer what figures arc quoted, however, it is in- disputable that few homesteaders know in the spring where they will mow in summer, and it is indisputable that there is insuffi- cient hay, and that by the end of winter the catdc become ema- ciated from lack of feed. The best hayfields are taken by the strongest—i.e., the prison and the military commands. The mead- ows remaining for the use of settlcrs arc either very distant or they cannot be harvested with a scythe but must be cut with a sickle. Because of the poor permeability of the subsoil, the majority of the meadows are marshy, and are always wet, thus producing sour grass and sedge; this makes for a coarse hay, containing little nourishment. The agricultural inspector says that the local hay in terms of nuuition can scarcely be compared with half the same amount of ordinary hay. The exiles find the hay poor, and they do not feed it to their animals without adding flour or potatoes. I will not make a judgment about whether the giant grasses in the forest valleys, of which so much is spoken, can be regarded as good fodder. I note that the seeds of one of these grasses, known as Sakhalin buckwheat, are now available to consumers in Russia. The report of the agriculrural inspector does not even mention whether grass-sowing is necessary or even possible on Sakhalin.
Now, as to cattle-raising. In 1889 there was one milk cow for every two and a half homesteads in the Alexandrovsk and Korsa- kov districts, and one for every three and a third in the Tymovsk. Practically the same figures apply to draft animals, that is, horses and oxen; in addition, the lower figures in this case apply to the best district, the Korsakov. These figures do not denote the actual conditions, however, since all the Sakhalin cattle are distributed very unequally among the homesteaders. The ownership of all the cattle is concentrated in the hands of the rich homesteaders who have large plots of land or else are engaged in trade.