The wealth of its flora and fauna very soon enabled the Ukraine to prosper. Very early it was called a land “where milk and honey flows.” This natural wealth of the organic world possessed the greater worth for the reason that it was not soon exhausted, and offered, as it still offers, to the population, an opportunity for constant work, enduring activity and steady development. The natural treasures of the Ukrainian territory are not the treasures of tropical countries which favor laziness, but the treasures of a more thrifty Nature, which require constant work to properly exploit them. Man has changed the natural conditions of the flora and fauna of the Ukraine to a great extent. These changes are not as fundamental as in Western and Central Europe, but they have a great anthropogeographical significance. The forest zone of the Ukraine is thinned even beyond the normal and in places destroyed. The artificial steppe of the cultivated land has penetrated very far to the north and west. Certain plant species have become rare, others have entirely disappeared, while, on the other hand, new ones have been acclimated. The original wealth of game of the Ukraine is a thing of the past now, and the great abundance of fish is almost all gone. On the other hand, man has increased the number of domestic animals enormously. All these conditions give to the Ukraine characteristics of a cultivated country. As we shall see further on, the degree of exploitation of natural resources is still very low, much lower than in the genuinely cultured countries of Europe. Despite all this, the Ukraine must be considered a land [245]exceptionally endowed with riches by Nature. Up to the present day this has been a misfortune, for from all sides strangers have come in to take with full hands of the riches of the Ukraine. But the time has come, at last, in which the possibility lies in the hands of the Ukrainian people to make use in the future of the rich resources of the Ukrainian land for themselves. [246] [Contents] Economic-Geographical Survey of Ukraine To give a lucid economic-geographical view of the Ukraine today is very difficult—almost impossible. The Ukrainian territory is divided among three states, and nowhere does the Ukrainian country form unbroken administrative units. Consequently, the official statistics cannot give an exact picture of the economic conditions of the Ukraine. The following attempt, also, can lay no claim to accuracy. A very heterogeneous and incomplete mass of material has made it impossible to attain the desired accuracy and uniformity.