Sheep-raising in the Ukraine decreased considerably within the last decades of the 19th Century, as a result of Australian competition. Formerly, the Southern Ukraine was one of the most important wool producing regions of the world. The decline of the sheep-raising industry has been accelerated a great deal by the transformation of the steppes into farmland. The immense flocks of sheep which roamed the Ukrainian steppes under the care of semi-nomadic shepherds are a thing of the past. Nevertheless, about 10 million sheep can still be found in the Ukraine. The greatest part of them is raised in the Don region, the Kuban region, Tauria, Katerinoslav and Bessarabia. Just as in the other branches of live-stock-breeding,
so also in the matter of sheep-raising, the most important part is performed by the peasant. The peasants breed chiefly coarse-wooled sheep of various breeds. These sheep can graze three-fourths of the year out in the steppes. The large landowners raise far less sheep, but these belong to the fine-wooled Merino breed, the raising of which is more expensive, but also more profitable. In very recent years the peasants have at last begun to engage in breeding the fine-wooled varieties. Sheep-raising is very important in the districts of Chernihiv, Poltava and Kharkiv, where, in the year 1900, there were 2>y2 million sheep (3 million of which belonged to peasants). Here the greatly renowned Reshetilov breed of sheep is raised. The remaining districts of the Ukraine carry on very little sheep-raising. Only in the Carpathians is it an important branch of industry of the population. Here the coarse-wooled mountain-sheep graze in the mountain pastures, and bring almost greater profit thru their dairy products and skins than thru their wool.
Goats are found very rarely in the Ukraine, almost exclusively in the Carpathian, Yaila and Caucasus Mountains. Hog-raising, however, is perhaps the most important source of income of the poorer Ukrainian peasantry, and as such it is common everywhere in the Ukraine, most of all in Chernihiv, Volhynia and Kuban. Besides stybreeding, extensive breeding is carried on in some districts. On the lower Dnieper and Dniester large droves of swine remain in the plavni all summer and fall. Improved breeds of English hogs (Yorkshire, Berkshire, etc.) are not common in the Ukraine and easily degenerate, while the most common breeds, the Russian, the Polish and the southern curly-haired variety, are very hard to fatten.
Camels are kept only in the southeastern steppes of the Ukraine (Tauria, Don region, Stavropol), buffaloes only in Bessarabia, asses and mules in Bessarabia and Tauria.
Having reached the end of our survey of cattle-raising in the Ukraine, we must turn to poultry-raising, which constitutes one of the most important sources of the money income of the peasantry. In view of the truly Spartan mode of life of our peasants, very little poultry is consumed by the breeder himself, most of it being sold to the dealers or in the cities. The balance of the production over the local consumption is so great that the entire Ukraine has become an exporting region for poultry, eggs and feathers to the other districts of Russia, to Western Austria, Germany, England, etc. From the nine governments of the Ukraine, in 1905, over 600,000 q. of eggs were exported, 90% of which went over the border. These Ukrainian governments yielded 40% of the total Russian exportation of eggs, Kharkiv alone giving 8%, Kiev 5%. If we consider the remaining Ukrainian districts of Russia, we can say, without fear of error, that all the, Russian territory together that is inhabited by Ukrainians produces more than half the Russian output of eggs and poultry. Podolia alone, in 1908, sold nearly 3J^ million fowl, Kharkiv (1906) \% million. Galicia, about the year 1903, exported annually eggs to the value of 35 million crowns*, feathers to the value of 3 million, and poultry to the value of 1J^ million, of which, at least, two-thirds must be credited to the Ukrainian part of the land.
Every farmer in the Ukraine raises live-stock. The percentage of exclusive breeders of live-stock is very small; in the Russian Ukraine, in 1897, it was hardly 0.4%.
Mineral Production
Altho farming — agriculture and cattle-raising — must, for the time being, comprise the main source of industry of the population of the Ukraine, this blessed land does not lack other resources as well. Very great mineral resources lie in various districts of the Ukraine; the largest in the
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