Perth Amboy evening news., 1921-09-01

| than eight bushels to the acre. Rota-
ton of crops, fertilizing and scientl-
flc seed selection are mysteries 10
him. With the land redivided on the
communal basis every few years., be-
fore the Revolution, he had little
incentive to build up the productivity
of the soil; for if he improved his
plot of the moment someone else
would reap the benefit when he had
been moved by the Village Assem-
bly, to another narrow strip of lands
"Samara reminds one of an AM
erican midWestern city. but as late
as the spring of 1918 its main square
was decorated with n of Russia'a
finest statues. erected in honor of
Alexander II, who freed the serfs,
conquered the Caucasus, delivered
the Balkan Slavs from Turkish rule,
and wrested Central Asia from the
fierce Turkomans. Today the peas
ants are under bondage to hunger
only slightly less poignant than that
(which makes torture-pens of the cit
les; the Caucasus is going it's several
ways under new governments; the
Balkan Slavs are settling into new
combinations in which Russia has no
place, and Central Asia is once more
Central Asia, the breeding place of
migrations and world unrest.
Below Samara. is Saratov, where
a modern' city has grown up in front
of a village of log huts; where a new
university was opened just before the
war; and where the best of the build
ings. including the great postoffice
and the huge public market, bear the
date 1914. Saratov is the center
around which live the German colon
lists whom Catharine the Great
| h-@,Ir1f l., frA,, how V1nfirvn 10 nj md
induced to settle in some of Rus
sia's finest agricultural land.
Camels Show Approach to Asia
"Saratov is surrounded. by scores
of small villages where live the most
intelligent of the Russian muzhiks,
most of whom do not till narrow
strips of communal soil but who b
tanned title to their land under the
Sto-ypin reforms. These tiny towns
consist of a single row of houses par
alleling a wide space which is used
as a street and along which the
heavy wheeled wagons search for a
safe path when spring soaks the
earth and the gumbo soil adheres to
everything it touches.
A the many spires of the Sara
TOW churches disappear from viaws
one looks forward to Tsaritzuin, at
the head of the Volga delta, where
the great river whose branches pierce
the Urals comes within fifty miles of
the Don which flows to the Black
Sea, gives passage to the Mediterran-
can. When the canal which was
planned before the war connects the
Volga at Tsaritzuin with the Don at
Kalatch, one may circle Europe by
boat and ultimately when a few short
additional canal links are constructs
ed may reach Lake aikal in Siberia,
more than half way between the Cas-
plan and the Pacific. In Tsaritzuin,
the influence of the steppe is already
felt and the bazaar is filled with cams
els and with ugly men with Mougol-
ian features who make one wonder
If he is still in Europe.
But on the way to Astrakhan
near The shores of the Caspian, he
really feels that the East is e at
hand, for he sees more felt kibitkas
than log houses and the very people
seem to belong to the Asiatic hest
which some Rip Van Wrinkle Timur
mas pieketed out to guard the land.
Astrakhan is the city of the sturgeon,
who is said. ostrich-like. to hide his
head in the mud during the long win
ter. 1t is from this lower Volga city
where Ess. meets West that mucn
of the caviar once came. In 1918 in
Astrakhan one ate caviar on his
black bread because he could not get
butter or honey. So mighty is the
sweep of the spring flood al this del
ia city hat bikes such as one may
find beside the Zuyder Zee arc car-
ried around the city to save it from
Mother volga to whom the polyglot
0ify nvvee ifS vary 1ifoD