Russia under the Old regime

2

reservoir of agricultural land, is in its major part unsuited for farming; in its eastern regions, lands located at the same latitude as England cannot be tilled at all.

Precipitation follows a pattern different from that prevailing in the distribution of the vegetation and soil. It is heaviest in the north-west, along the coast of the Baltic Sea, where it is brought in by the warm winds, and decreases as one moves in the opposite direction, towards the south-east. In other words, it is the most generous where the soil is the poorest. Another peculiarity of precipitation in Russia is that the rain tends to fall heaviest in the second half of the summer. In the Moscow region, the two rainiest months of the year are July and August, when nearly a quarter of the entire annual precipitation occurs. A small shift in the timetable of rain distribution can mean a drought in the spring and early summer, followed by disastrous downpours during the harvest. In western Europe the rainfall distributes itself much more evenly throughout the year.