A TATAR mill is the most simple piece of mechanism that can be conceived. Few windmills are employed. The water-mills are all undershot, and being worked by very small streams, seldom move above half the year: for in the height of summer they frequently stand still from drought, and in winter from frost.
At these times, it is often necessary to send corn to be ground to .the distance of forty or fifty versts. These mills perform their office so badly, that the best wheat which can be procured will not give a fine flour. The only mode of dressing it known here is by sieves at home, and all the fine flour in use throughout the southern governments of Russia is brought from Moscow (distant from Akmetchet 1397 versts). It sells at from seven to ten rubles per pood, or thirty-six pounds English, white the best home flour, undressed, is bought at from twelve to twenty-five kopeeks the oka.
Rye-flour is universally used by the Tatars in the manufacture of bread, and wheat-flour in that of pastry. The small quantity of good wheat which they rear is almost all sold to purchase the few necessaries which they have occasion to buy.
The soil of the Crimea is various. In some places it is a rich loamy clay, but I believe far the greater part is shallow, rocky, or gravelly ; and from the heat of the sun, the grass is burnt up very early in the season. Of corn the average crop is said to be eight for one ; I cannot, however, think that, even in favourable years, it exceeds this amount, and I fear that deficient crops are more frequent than abundant ones.
The harvest takes place as early as the end of June or beginning of July, and since the rapidity with which the corn is ripened renders it extremely dry and brittle, it is customary to sow bearded wheat, which is less liable to shake. Much ofwhat is called Arnoot, or spring wheat, is sown by the Russians, Bulgarians, &c. ; but for the most part winter wheat ofa very inferior quality, rye, some barley, afew oats, or a little hemp, flax, or millet, form the extent of Tatar cultivation.
It is remarkable that barley and oats, which in English husbandry follow in the succession of crops, never prosper so well in the Crimea as when sown on the same land, year after year, for eight, nine, or even ten years, unintermittingly. Arnoot is never sown on fresh land, unless it be ploughed in autumn, the spring rains being, in the most favourable seasons, insufficient to supply the requisite quantity of moisture.
The climate is not so temperate as that of England, the heat in summer being much greater, and the cold in winter infinitely more severe.
These observations having been written on the northern side ofthe ridge of mountainswhich skirt the coast of the Crimea, are not intended to apply to the" small, but beautiful tract, which slopes to the sea on their southern exposure.
The winter, however, is of short duration, and frequently breaks up as early as February, so as to admit of ploughing. In the month ofMarch I have knowrn the weather not only mild but warm. The cold, while it lasts, is much increased by the prevalence of north and northeasterly winds, which, moreover, render the heat of summer more dangerous, by subjecting the body to contrary extremes at the same moment. In the finest weather, it is considered unsafe to go out after sun-set without warm clothing.
Sudden fogs prevail in spring, but rains, on which the hopes ofthe farmer depend, are very uncertain at that season. These fogs are extremely prejudicial to the fruit crop in the Crimea, for even after it is set, and before it has attained halfits growth, they veryfrequently destroy the whole.
Throughout the summer there are heavydews at night, but, from the remarkable beauty ofthe sky and serenity ofthe air, the evenings for about an hour before sun-set are peculiarly delightful.
The autumns are short, the frosts setting in very early, and the leaves falling almost as soon as they change. A fair estimate of the general clearness of the climate may be formed, from an account which we kept ofthe weatherduring the first year of our residence at Karagoss ; by this it appears, that from February 3d, 1816, to February 3d, 1817, there were only four days on which we did not see the sun. .
The prevalent complaints are intermittent fevers and dysenteries, against which, however, a little precaution is a sufficient guard. The latter disease often proves fatal to children in the autumn, in consequence of the inordinate quantity of fruit and raw vegetables which are eaten throughout the whole summer. We have found by experience, that wounds are more difficult to heal than in England, being affected by extremes either of heat or of cold.