Not the steppe, but the forest and the wood-meadow are the native floral conditions of the Ukrainian. In the forest zone and in the adjacent parts of the forest-meadow zone, the seed of the Kiev State originated. In its expansion, this state first of all embraced the forest regions of the Ukraine, while the steppe regions were conquered later and kept under the dominion of the state for a comparatively short time only. The second center of the old Ukrainian historic life also lies within the forest zone of the Ukraine, namely, the Galician-Volhynian. Even the center of Ukrainian historical life that extended farthest into the steppe, the Zaporog Sich, was dependent for its existence upon the great wooded areas of the Veliki Luh on the Dnieper and its tributaries, and thus bound to the forest country.
The pronounced inclination of the Ukrainian people to agriculture, from the most ancient times down to the present, is another proof that it is a forest people, paradoxical tho it may seem. For it is an undisputed fact that, altho the steppes have apparently been most favorable to the cultivation of the grain grasses, and altho the present main centers of the grain production of the world lie in the steppe country of the prairies, pampas, Ukraine, yet nowhere in the whole world have the steppes brought forth an agricultural people. No steppe-people, anywhere, ever began agriculture of its own accord. The forest peoples had to teach the steppe-races agriculture in the first place. Only in case of bitter necessity do the inhabitants of the steppes take to the plough, and never has agriculture become part of their system to them.
How great was the part of the Ukrainian forest region in the past life of the nation has already been suggested in Book I. Only to the forests does the Ukrainian nation owe its preservation during the Tatar attacks. The forests were the only refuge of the people, to the forest zone the inhabitants of the steppes retreated whenever the steppes were threatened by the nomads, moving back again at a favorable opportunity.
The Ukrainian forests have also been of great importance as boundaries. The function of the forest to form important boundaries for races on a low grade of culture is familiar to anthropogeography. In Ukrainian history, too, this characteristic of the forests has appeared prominently. The forests of the Ukrainian Polissye were of great importance for the fencing-off of the East Slavic tribes, and by forming a wide zone, difficult of passage, separating the East Slavic tribes of the south from those of the north and west, they have contributed a great deal to the formation of the three East Slavic nations of today. In the days of the ancient Kingdom- of Kiev, the centers in which the Muscovite nation later developed bore the name of Salissye (land behind the forest). There was a Pereyaslav Saliski, Vladimir Saliski, etc.