THE MENNONITE BROTHERHOOD IN RUSSIA (1789 - 1910), P. M. Friesen, 1911

ginning and changes in temperature. In the beginning the settlers suffered from severe fevers and other diseases due to these rapid, drastic variations in climate. If the precipitation, even though not in larger amounts, would fall at the right 190 IN RUSSIA 1789-1860 time, the steppes, given the inexhaustible fertility of the soil, would become a region of unsurpassable productivity. [In spite of the unstable weather conditions and unpredictable rain and snow fall, this region has made the colonies rich. Freely used.] N.B., Reiswitz and Wadzeck, p. 398, relate the emperor’s visit in Lindenau described above in connection with the foregoing and add that “Mrs. Hiebert received a diamond ring as a gift.” C. Johann Cornies and the Agricultural Society (Compare with ##38-42, 61 and 61(2)) 1. a) The history of the development of the Molotschna Mennonite colonies and that of many others in Southern Russia is intimately related to the life of a man whose name has already often been mentioned and who deserves to be remembered in greater detail, so that especially those who benefitted from the fruit of his blessed labors may remember him with thankful hearts. This man was called Johann Cornies; he lived in the village of Ohrloff, which lies on the Kurushan, a small tributary of the Molotschna River (eighteen versts from Halbstadt and thirty from Melitopol). b) In 1806, as a sixteen-year-old lad, he came to Russia from Prussia with his parents. A few years later his parents settled in Ohrloff, which had been founded the year he arrived. Here, amidst very plain circumstances and the unpleasant conditions existing in a new settlement, Cornies, at the side of his parents and other settlers, quietly ripened into the man who was later to exercise such an immense influence on his surroundings. He came from a poor home, nor had he had the opportunity to acquire a formal education in school. He later tried to remedy this situation by reading widely, and in the school of life, which became his chief teacher, he had ample opportunity to develop his remarkable intellectual talents. And he used these opportunities to advantage; in this way Johann Cornies became a knowledgeable, experienced, thoroughly practical man with a broad and lucid perspective on life. Ample evidence of this is to be found in his activity as leader of the Molotschna school system and chairman of the Agricultural Society, 103 as well as in the numerous outlines of reports to the authorities and orders to his subordinates, which are all written in the language of a thoroughly educated man. At the same time he possessed a pious min d and a heart filled with love toward his fellow-man. c) After many bitter failures, Cornies succeeded in acquiring a small amount of cash which he used to rent the unsettled Mennonite lands from the crown. With a few hundred sheep he founded a small sheep ranch on the little river Juschanlee, the largest tributar