SYSTEMS   OF  CULTIVATION   AND  AUXILIARY   PURSUITS.
to the idea of introducing American cotton seed into Turkistan as being of much finer quality. The first attempts, however, extending over more than 10 years, proved quite unsuccessful until in «the eighties*- the Upland sort was brought under notice, and energetically recommended and distributed. Experimental plantations: were established, and seed was given away gratis, etc. Thanks to these measures private plantations began to appear in Turkistan and also in the Trans-Caucasus; and in 1892 the plantations of Cotton in Turkistan occupied not less than joo.000 desiatines, 8/* of which were sown with Upland, producing cotton fibre to the extent of 2 million poods, and together with the cotton produce of Khiva and Bokhara, up to 4. million poods. There is, moreover, every probability, that the production in Turkistan may be brought up to 6 or 7 million poods. There are not very many extensive plantations of more than 100 desiatines. Most of them consist of small plots of 1/-2 to 5 desiatines, the owners of which send their cotton to the towns and villages, where it is bought by agents of large firms, with money, or else for advances on future crops, or on cotton in store for sale.
Among auxiliary, or subsidiary branches of rural economy in fhe south of Russia, in Bessarabia, the Crimea and the Caucasus, precedence must undoubtedly be given to viniculture and the making of wine. In the Caucasus it is estimated that there are more than 120,000 desiatines of vineyards, producing more than 13 million vedros of wine; in Bessarabia up to 70,000 desiatines,  furnishing yearly more than  12 million vedros
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