THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE 253 
1916 the average price of a horse in Siberia was only 141 rubles, the 
extra expense incurred until arrival at Moscow amounting to 43 
rubles per horse. At that time the average cost of a horse in Euro- 
pean Russia was 289 rubles, with incidental expenses amounting to 
31 rubles. In general, however, the price of horses bought by the 
Union steadily increased. About the end of 1915 the average price 
was 163 rubles, with incidental expenses of 81 rubles. During the 
first half of 1916 the price had risen to 208 rubles, plus 23 rubles. 
[n the second half of the same year, the respective figures had 
reached 246 rubles, and 31 rubles. 
The purchasing operations required a complicated organization 
on the spot. The resources of the territory had to be explored, a 
proper selection of horses had to be made, suitable pastures during 
the summer, and stables and fodder during the winter, had to be 
found until the animals could be entrained, and then they had to be 
conveyed either to Moscow or Orel. Here, again, the horses had to be 
fed until they could be delivered at the front. To provide an ade- 
quate supply of fodder at Orel and Moscow where as many as five 
hundred horses were constantly assembled, was a problem of con- 
siderable and increasing difficulty. At the Moscow stud, the average 
daily cost of maintaining a horse about the middle of 1916 was one 
ruble, of which amount about three-quarters went to the purchase 
of fodder and the rest to the care of the animals. In each territory 
there was a deputy commissioner of the Zemstvo Union with a staff 
of trained workers attached to his office, to deal with this work. 
These were sometimes confronted with quite unexpected tasks; thus, 
in the steppes of Orenburg, they found themselves compelled to buy 
herds of wild horses from the Kirghiz tribes and to break them in. 
At Moscow the department was ordered to organize permanent 
cransport within the city, for the conveyance of stores belonging to 
the Zemstvo Union. With the aid of this transport, which consisted 
of nearly five hundred drays and carts, millions of puds of stores 
were transported to the depots and loaded in the trains, the average 
cost per cartload of sixty to seventy-five puds being about nine ru- 
bles. This system of transport likewise involved a complicated or- 
ganization with its own repair shops, blacksmiths’ shops, harness 
makers, and other such auxiliary services. 
The work of this department earned general appreciation. On 
many occasions the military authorities and the officials in charge of