ABSTRACT
The less advanced economic development of Russia, as compared with her Western neighbours, was also responsible for the relative uniformity of her agricultural industry. The agricultural industry of the under-producing provinces is in a position in many respects different from that of farming in the provinces producing a surplus of cereals. The relatively high returns of the agricultural industry, coupled with the pressure of population on the land, which was especially acute in the Southern, more purely agricultural, provinces of the Moscow region, were reflected in the prices of land, which were on the average higher than in any other region outside the black-earth. Farther South, one enters the agricultural region of the Ukraine, on the left bank of the Dnieper, and the South-Western, on its right bank. The rural population of the Ukraine, in 1897, was 48.7, and of the South-West 65.5 per square verst.
