Wood is exceedingly dear, and one can often buy a waggon -load of good crayfish for a smaller price than the same quantity of wood. The charcoal comes exclusively from the forests in the neighbourhood of Kisheneff, and the waggons in which it is brought have a very curious appearance, as in order to contain a greater quantity of this light article, they are surrounded with wicker-work as high as a tower, and when a great number of them come together, they have the appearance of a moving town. This wickerwork, as well as the charcoal, is usually sold at Odessa, where every splinter of wood is sure to find a purchaser. The waggons of hay, straw, and reeds, are still more numerous ; and, indeed, on the market-days, come in such throngs, that in the lanes and streets which they form, one may easily lose oneself. This is natural enough, for straw and reeds make of course a very bulky kind of fuel, and a few hundred loads of them flare away in a day merely to boil the kettles for coffee. Immense quantities of hay are also sold at a very low price, as food for cattle, of which the Russian cities always contain greater numbers than any others, and Odessa almost more than any other Russian city. Almost every one can afford to keep horses, oxen, and cows, and the nature of the trade, and the distance of the quarantine harbour, necessarily occasions a great demand for draught animals.
Hay, therefore, is consumed in immense quantities, and the whole town may be said to be surrounded by a wall of hay. Many of the dealers arrange their merchandise into a high hollow square, which serves them as a regular dwelling. They place a door for an entrance, and before it hang up a pair of scales for the purpose of weighing their hay. These hay magazines encircle the whole town.
The great scarcity of wood has naturally led to the employment of dung as a substitute of fuel. In all the villages in this country, it is seen laid along the hedges and walls to dry during the whole summer ; and the due preparation of it is one of the regular employments of the country. Even in the steppe, one sees the shepherds carefully collecting it into heaps, and when a sufficient quantity is obtained, it is carted home. After lying the whole winter, and being either trodden by horses, or kneaded by the hand, it is made up in spring into various fanciful forms. The latter method of worldng is considered by far the best.