The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-06-07

Copyright. 1908. by Frank c. Carpenter.)
 ST. PETERSBURG.
 have come from Berlin to St. Peters burg as an advance scout of the Amer ican invasion. I went across North Ger many to StettinA on the Oder, and there got German steamer which took me over the Baltic to Kronstadt and landed me in St. Petersburg. The trip cost me S15 and lasted three days. Our ship was so heavily laden with German goods for Russia that we could not move about upon deck, and the cabins were so filled with commercial >drummers that we had to sleep three in a room.
 Everything about the steamer was Ger man. The beds were too short and the bedding was shorter. It is cold on the Baltic at this time of year. and the fat feather tick which was my only cover ing reached but to my chest. When I covered my neck I had an attack of cold feet and if saved my feet I was in danger of bronchitis. The food was Ger man. We had coffee and bread and but ter at o'clock in the morning, pork chops or veal outlets or Hamburger steak along about 10. a dinner at and supper at '. There was plenty of light and dark beer with each. meal, and cheese of all kinds, from Schweizer to Limbur- ger.
 I talked with the German drummers as to their trade with Russia. They claim that they have the foreign trade of the whole empire with the exception of ag- ricultural machinery in their inside vest pocket and as far as I can judge at this early writing they are not far from correct I find Germans everywhere. They have their stores in every city and their agents on every road. They do so much of the business that German is generally understood by the larger ner- chants. There are more than 13,000 of them in St. Petersburg alone, to about | Z, eco French, 1000 English and less than l fifty Americans.
 The Big Russian Market. We are sending a few million dollars | worth of goods here every year. but our exporters have not begun to tap the | trade. The most of the American goods are handled by Germans or sold through | German agents. and we do not seem to realize the magnitude of the empire nor the enormous possibilities of it's trade. 1t is already one of the greatest markets of the world. and in the future it will be a hundred times greater.
 | Have you ever thought of the size of Russia? You know 1t is big, but do you :. know how big it is? From the top ot 1 Russia in Europe to the bottom Is about as far as from New York to Salt Lake City, and across 1t from west to east is almost as far as from New York to Denver It comprises about two-thirds of the European continent, and 1t is | about two thirds as large as the United States without Alaska or our outlying ! colonies. A large part of the country has some of the best soil on the globe, but | it is not half cultivated. The better far mers are introducing our agricultural machinery and year by year the crops l increase.
 |, But Russia in Europe is less than one fourth of the Russian Empire. It has more than 6,O00,0OO square miles of land in Asia the most of it in great blocks, including, vast tracts which win raise wheat, cotton, dairy products and every thing under the sun. The land contains minerals of all kinds, and 1t is on the whole the greatest undeveloped property in the world today. Altogether the Rus | sian Empire contains more than one sixth of all the land on the earths sur | face, or about two and one-half times as2much as is owned by '. the United States. ss .
 Our Russian Customers.
 This vast. extent of country is thinly populated. It win probably support 100 men where it now supports one, but, nev- ertheless, it has d vast population The Czar rules almost 130. coo. .0o0 people. or | just about one-twelfth of the population of the globe. That means If you could | put all the people on this big, round earth into one place, one in every dozen | would be Russian.
 | These people are not like the savages of Central Africa, who have but few