The climate of Russia is cold in winter, and the means of cooking and artificial warmth are scanty, and not easily procured at any time; thus, when the famine really came upon them, observers were divided in opinion whether the famine, or fear of famine, or of something worse, destroyed or paralyzed these people the more. The harvest yields of 1889 and 1890 had been much less than an average, and at the beginning of 1891 but little of the old supplies of grain was left over. The harvest of 1891 was nearly a total failure throughout a vast region in central Russia extending from Moscow, roughly speaking, say, three hundred miles in a northeasterly direction over a plain eight hundred to a thousand miles in width, beyond the Ural Mountains, and some distance into Siberia in Asiatic Russia--a district of nearly a million square miles. Ordinarily this is the most productive part of the Empire, upon which the remainder of the country had been accustomed to draw for food supplies in the frequent cases of deficiency elsewhere. The appearance of the country is similar to our prairie States in the early days before the growth of the planted trees; and the soil is a rich, black loam that usually produces good harvests. It was estimated by those best qualified to judge that from thirty to thirty-five millions of people were sufferers by the famine of 1891. Count Tolstoy gave up his whole time to mitigating the suffering caused by this great disaster, and to understanding the situation broadly. He went into the homes of the people, and studied their needs sympathetically; he placed himself by their side, and with his dramatic instinct understood them, ascertained where the hurt was felt, and how it could be cured, if it could be cured at all.