The fertility of the Ukrainian soil has had several unfavorable as well as favorable results. Like a promised land, the Ukraine has always lured foreign conquerors and colonists. Its fertility has brought the Ukraine much war and trouble. For centuries the fertile ground of the Ukraine [227]gave its own people only a part of its rich produce. To this day the foreign landowners and grain merchants demand the greater part of the harvest, while the native people of the Ukraine, who have dwelt in the land since time out of mind, can hardly reserve enough for themselves to keep from dying of hunger. The fertile Ukrainian ground has exerted another important unfavorable influence over the Ukrainian people. The great fertility of its fields has caused a certain indifference and carelessness in planting among the Ukrainian peasants. To be sure, the Ukrainian is a better farmer than the White Russian, Russian or Roumanian. But for centuries he has been accustomed to depend on the fertility of his native soil and is, therefore, far behind the progressive farmer of Central or Western Europe. Antiquated methods of planting have until recently prevailed in the Ukraine without the slightest change. At the same time the ground has become scant, and progressive methods of cultivation must be adopted in order to get as much as possible out of the land and to balance the relative diminution of the cultivation area. The geological conditions have also exerted a great deal of influence over the buildings and roads of the Ukraine. Clay houses, covered with straw, are still typical for the Ukraine today. Only in the most recent times brick houses, covered with shingle, are beginning to appear in the Ukrainian villages. Stone buildings were not original with the Ukraine, and were only adopted with the higher grade of culture. The cause of this is not the lack of building material. Almost everywhere in the Ukraine good building-stone is found beneath the thick cover of loose earth. But the abundance of clay always showed the nearer and easier way—clay huts. Even this small matter has had an unhappy influence upon the fate of the Ukraine. The ancient Ukrainian cities consisted [228]chiefly of wood and clay buildings and were fortified by means of earthworks, palisades and clay covered wooden towers. Walled houses and circular walls were very rare. This condition made the defence of the cities and castles, even against the attacks of nomadic tribes, very difficult. The ancient Ukrainian State would not have been destroyed so soon if it had had an abundance of strongly fortified walled cities.