20 JOURNEY FROM St. PETERSBURG TO TZARITZIN.

without manure, and new arable land is in great abundance.If the boors could be perfuaded to mix the düng they waftevvith tbe afhes of their hearths, with marle which is abund-ant here, and good black earth, fo as to forn beds of thiscompofition on dry places, the produ&ion of nitre might eafilybe increaied in Ruffia. Perhaps this objeft covdd in fomemeafure be attained, if the labour beftowed on the manufactureof faltpetre were, according to a fettled regulation, computedby the fathom, and allowed to the peafants by a deduclionfrom their arrears, or Nedoimki, due to the crown.—The cropsof hay yield here from fifty to feventy poods * from thedefasttine f, or two thoufand four hundred fquare roods.

The city of Penfa (fix hundred and fixty verfts from Mofco,and one thoufand three hundred and ninety-four from St.Peterfburg) furprifed me in a very agreeable manner. By thekindnefs of the governor, Lieutenant-general Stupishin, wewere accommodated in one of the beft new-built houfes. WhenI vifited this place in the year 1768, it was then only a market-town, and I found it throughout built of wood, in a wretchedand irregulär manner, the churches excepted. Since the efta-blifhment of the provincial government, many noble familieshave been induced to fettle here, and to build ftrong, beautifulmanfions, difpofed in regulär ftreets, by which this city, not-withftanding its hilly fituation, promifes to become one of themoft flourifhing places of its rank.

* A pood is forty pounds weight.

\ A defaettine is two hundred and ten Rhenifh feet broad, and five hundred andfixty feet long, being 117,600 fquare feet.

However