ACTIVITIES BEFORE THE WAR 47
work for its further promotion, by providing marketing facilities,
furnishing artistic patterns and models to the producers, organizing
exhibitions of their goods, and providing other facilities. The largest
 and most widely known of all the zemstvo stores for the sale of
the products of the cottage industry (with an exhibition and workshops
 attached to it) was that of the Moscow provincial zemstvo,
which sold its goods not only throughout Russia, but even in foreign
countries. Of great importance in the development of the cottage industry
 were the stores maintained by the provincial zemstvos of
Kostroma, Ufa, Vyatka, and other provinces, not to mention the
stores belonging to numerous district zemstvos.
During the last few years preceding the War, the system of banks
(funds) maintained by the zemstvos expanded very rapidly. By
January 1, 1915, the zemstvos had opened 239 such institutions,
with a total balance of 85,958,900 rubles. Through the medium of
these banks, just as through their agricultural stores, the zemstvos
were closely connected with a large network of rural codperative
societies.
In concluding our survey of the activities of the zemstvos in the
economic field, we cannot omit the vast amount of work that was
accomplished by the statistical bureaus of the provincial zemstvos.
Surveys, undertaken by the zemstvos for various practical purposes,
such as the appraisal of real property, supplied a wealth of material
without which an adequate study of the economic condition of the
country would have been impossible.
A majority of the provincial zemstvos had special offices for current
 agricultural statistics, which collected the yearly figures of the
harvest, grain prices, wages, and similar important data. These statistics
 were found to be more complete and reliable than those assembled
 by agents of the central government, and it is to be regretted
that the traditional conflict between the bureaucracy and the zemstvos
 stood in the way of their effective cooperation in this field.

Fire Insurance and Prevention.

Fire insurance constituted one of the most important fields of
zemstvo activity. When the zemstvo institutions were established,
fires in the rural districts were a veritable scourge to the peasants,
owing to the fact that their buildings, mostly of wood and thatch,
stood so close together. Every fire breaking out in a village would