Another important commercial plant of the Ukraine is tobacco, which takes up over 50,000 hectars of farm-land, 3000 hectares of it in Galicia. The chief districts of tobacco production are Chernihiv, Poltava, Kuban and Tauria.
Much less is produced in the Black Sea region in Podolia, Volhynia, Bessarabia, Kherson and Kharkiv. The tobacco production in Russian Ukraine in 1908 amounted to over 660,000 q., that is, 69% of the total production of Russia, in Galicia 50,000 q. Tobacco culture has a great future in the Ukraine, because the ground and the climate are wonderfully fit for it. But first the unfavorable conditions, which lie chiefly in the poor organization of the tobacco trade, must be removed.
Hops are raised in the Ukraine to a very slight extent. In Galicia only the large landowners engage in a little hop culture on 2300 hectars of ground. In Volhynia the Chekhic colonists have introduced the cultivation of hops. It comprises about 3000 hectares of land and yields over 1 6,000 q. of hops a year, that is 40% of the total Russian output of hops.
Fruit and Vegetable Raising
Vegetable-culture is very slightly developed in the Ukraine. Beyond the little vegetable gardens about the houses and the melon-patches in the steppe we see no developed vegetable culture even in the neighborhood of large cities. It is worthy of mention only in the Chernihiv and Odessa regions, as well as in the old Zaporog country on the Dnieper (Oleshki, etc.). Here vegetables are harvested twice a year, in the early summer for exportation and in the fall for home use. The South Ukrainian melon plantations (bashtani) annually yield great masses of sweet melons, watermelons, pumpkins and cucumbers. Here there has even arisen a special class of bashtanki, who rent pieces of land for melon patches.
Fruit-culture is much more highly developed in the Ukraine. The love of the Ukrainian people for trees favors the planting of orchards. The ignorance of progressive fruit-culture, owing to illiteracy, as well as the exploitation of the fruit growers by middlemen is hindering the development of Ukrainian fruit-culture, which, nevertheless, has a great future before it, and even now plays an important part in the economic life of the Ukraine.
The greatest amount of space is taken up by orchards in Bessarabia (40,000 hectars), where the more delicate kinds of apples, pears, plums and walnuts, almonds and apricots are raised. In Podolia the orchards of the peasants alone comprise more than 26,000 hectars. Besides apples, pears and plums, great quantities of cherries are raised here. The orchards usually lie in the deep river-valleys. The yar of the Dniester, between Khotin and Yampol, produces annually half a million metric hundredweights of fruit. From Podolia and Bessarabia over 800,000 q. of fresh fruit, 100,000 q. of dried fruit and 20,000 q. of nuts and almonds are exported annually. The most luxuriantly growing orchards are those of Tauria, which cover over 7000 hectares on the northern declivities of the Yaila Mountains. The annual production exceeds 160,000 q. of fruit and 40,000 q. of nuts. In this region the tenderest species of apples, pears and plums flourish, besides apricots (4,000 q. a year) and peaches. About the middle of May the cherries ripen here. In the middle of June the apricots; at the end of June plums and early pears; about the middle of July peaches and early apples; in August we have autumn pears and apples, and in the first half of September, the winter apples.
Beyond these districts, fruit-culture is practised on a large scale in the Kiev region and in Volhynia. Here, above all, the hardier northern species of apples and pears are raised, as well as cherries. In Kherson and Katerinoslav, too, fruit-raising flourishes; especially in the Dnieper valley, where apricots also thrive. In the Poltava country fruit-culture is still important enough, while in the districts of Kharkiv, Voroniz, Kursk and Chernihiv it is much less significant, altho we find, even here, a few centers of intensive fruit-growing; for instance, in the vicinity of the cities of Kharkiv, Okhtirka, Bohodukhiv. In Galicia fruit-growing is not especially developed, except in Pokutia, the vicinity of Kossiv, and the Podolian yarivalleys, where (near Zalishchiki) even apricots and grapes are grown.