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Before the 1917 Revolution, about one hundred and thirty thousand people of Finnish origin lived on Russian territory on the south shore of the Gulf of Finland—from the Narva River in the west to the Neva River in the east, and in the region north of St. Petersburg. Their numbers remained fairly constant during the 1920s and early 1930s, but, after the Second World War, a great decrease was evident in the total Finnish population of the region, with only about twentyfour thousand recorded in the 1970 Soviet census. This drop in population is attributable not only to the ravages of the war but also to movements of people, including deportations that took place during the 1930s and 1940s.

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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. American Geographical Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Geographical Review. a remarkable continuity in purpose and method from the midnineteenth century to the present. No discernible break was caused by the advent of Soviet power in 1917. On the contrary, Soviet policy has been simply an extension of Czarist policy, and the methods of achieving the aims of this policy have shown little change. The use of machinery has replaced the mass use of human labor, canals are now lined with concrete, and a drainage system has been constructed, but basically the enlargement of the irrigated area of the Golodnaya Steppe is being achieved by the development of the canal system begun by the Czarist authorities. EARLY AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES Before the arrival of the Russians in Central Asia, native agriculture consisted of both dry and irrigated farming. Dry farming' was carried out on the foothills and lower slopes of the Central Asian mountains from about 2000 feet up to some 5000 feet. The soils of these slopes are mainly sierozems developed from loess and carry a cover of short grass. Although they are by nature fertile, the main factor that permits dry agriculture here is the average annual precipitation of 10 to 20 inches. In this environment the local people grew such crops as wheat, barley, and millet, which are suitable for an arid environment and need little attention. This type of farming saved time and labor, but the size and quality of the harvest varied considerably from year to year depending on the amount of rainfall. Nevertheless, although dry farming was an important method of ensuring adequate supplies of grain for the people of Turkestan, it only supplemented irrigated agriculture, which provided most of the food and fiber crops for the region. Irrigation2 supported dense rural populations in the Fergana Valley, in the Tashkent region, along the Zaravshan River and the Qashqa Darya, and in the area of Khiva and Urgench, near the mouth of the Amu Darya.Dry farming was known to the Uzbeks as bdharikarlik (from bihar, spring season), to the Tajiks as baharikari or lalmikari, and to the Russians as bogara.2 Irrigation was known to the Uzbeks as suwli (watered) and to the Tajiks as abikari (watered) or tiramahi (autumnal) agriculture. >DR. MATLEY is professor of geography at Michigan State University, East Lansing.This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 22:16:07 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE GOLODNAYA STEPPEThe long hot summers, the plentiful sunshine, and the fertile sierozem soils permitted the successful cultivation of a variety of irrigated crops. Wheat was the most important grain cr...