Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1916-12-05
DEFY ARID WASTES
WONDERFUL WORK OF RUSSIANS
IN CENTRAL ASIA.
All the Military Power of the Gar
Would Have Been of No Avail but
for the Patient Labor of
the Colonists.

How Russian colonists have Strug-
gled and conquered in Russian Cen
trail Asia is revealed by Stephen Gra-
ham, who has recently made tramp
ing tour through that comparatively
unknown section of the earth.
After crossing the Caspian sea from
Baku to Krasnovodsk Mr.. Graham
took the desert railway, on which the
trains average speed of only II
miles an hour over the Indifferent
sleeperS. The western mind might find
this railway inexplicable. Why a des-
ert line While many of the railways at
home are undeveloped, and strategic
railways are unbuilt? The answer is
the results in colonization and trade.
AS Mr.. Graham looks out of the
window during his journey a delight
full phrase occurs to him about a dis
tant string of camels moving across
the sand parallel to the line. He de-
scribes them as looking like "a scrap
of eastern handwriting between earth
and heaven" Anyone who has seen
a string of camels ON a vague hori-
zon will recognize the aptness of the
smile.
Only irrigation is needed to make
this and other Central Asia deserts
blossom like the rose, and the Rus
slams have already done splendid
work in this respect.
Mr.. Graham in his book, Through
Russian Central ASIA" describes how
the typical Russian family become col
oniSts. A messenger is sent in advance
to choose site, and then the family
proceeds to the appointed place.
First of all, trees are planted" says
Mr. Graham. "HOw pathetic to see
the long rows of three-foot-high poplar
shoots and willow twigs! A month on
this sun-beaten road leaves no doubt
in the emigrant'S mind as to what is
the first necessity-shade, shade. Trees
are planted all along the main gov
eminent dixie.
THE cOlOniSt chooses the place for
his house; he digs a trench all around
it and let's in water from the dixie, and
he plants trees along the trench. Then
he buys stout poplar trunks and will
low trunks, and makes the framework
of his cottage. He interlaces little will
low twigs and makes the sort of wilted
green, slightly shady, slightly sunny
house that children might put up in
wood in England.
His roof he makes of prairie grass,
dc +o in, In, orth a
thick and strong, or of willow twigs
again and turf. In his second year he
has a little hay harvest on his roof. He
plows his little bit of desert. He ex-
changes some of his oxen for cows. He
strives with all his power-as does a
transplanted fioWer-tO take root.
HE looks forlorn. You look at his
poor estate and say: 1T is a poor eX-
pertinent. The sun is too strong for
him, he will just wither off, and the
desert will be as before
But you come another day and you
see change, and eXclaim: He has
taken root after all E; there is shoot of
young life there, tender and green"
All Russian Central Asia, says Mr..
Graham, has been won almost without
fighting. Military professions were
generally all that was necessary. Box
hara and Khiva came under Russian
protection, the railway was built, and
Russia became the most important
Moslem power in Central Asia. But
had it not been for the patient colon
lists who put together their waffle and
mud houses in the wake of the army,
the settlement could never have been
a reality.