Donkeys and mules are rarities in the Ukraine, also very few goats are kept. In sheep, however, the Ukraine is [116]the richest country in Europe. Not only native breeds (among them the justly famous reshetilivka, as it is called), but also foreign merino sheep are raised, especially in the steppes of the Ukraine. Hog raising is very highly developed. Usually Polish hogs are raised in Western Ukraine, Russian short-eared hogs in the eastern part, and in Southern Ukraine, southern crinkled hogs. In barnyard fowl the Ukraine is the richest land in Eastern Europe. Also bee culture is very important, especially in the Dnieper Plain. Silkworm culture, however, is not very important, altho the mulberry trees find favorable climatic conditions thruout the Ukraine. [117] Book II ANTHROPOGEOGRAPHY [118] [Contents] Ethnographic Boundaries of Ukraine [Contents] Number and Geographical Distribution of Ukrainians To give the ethnographic boundaries of a Western or Central European nation is very easy, for they have long since been determined and investigated, and it would be hard to find anyone who might try to efface or disregard them, least of all to falsify them. But with the Ukrainians it is quite different. They possess neither political independence, as for example, the Germans, French, Italians, etc., nor political influence, as for instance, the Poles and Czechs in Austria. The Ukrainians inhabit parts of two states, Austria-Hungary and Russia, and have some political significance in the former, while in the latter they are not even recognized as a racial entity. Accordingly, the real boundaries of the National territory of the Ukraine are insufficiently known. They are best known within Austrian territory, altho the statistics, especially those of Galicia, are very poor. Even less exact in respect to the distribution of the Ukrainians are the Hungarian statistics. In Russia the condition is worst of all. The first real census here was taken on January 28, 1897. All earlier calculations and estimates are of very questionable worth. For instance, all the Pinchuks, the Ukrainian inhabitants of the Polissye, have been erroneously counted with the White Russians, the Ukrainians in the [119]vicinity of Mhilin and Starodub with the Great Russians. Besides, very many Ukrainians were registered under the general heading of “Russians.” For this reason, it is impossible at the present time to give the boundaries of the Ukrainian racial territory as exactly as those of the Western and Central European countries. The boundaries here given, however, are drawn from official statistical sources, and only very conspicuous and generally acknowledged errors have been corrected.