HOPE FOR TEE RUSSIAN PEASANTRY 599 



The government may be called upon to survey the nadiel of a single 

 very large village. Take Borma as an example. It owned 6,250 dessia- 

 tines or approximately 16,625 acres cut up, so that each household 

 tilled eighteen widely scattered parcels. The pasturage was divided 

 anew each year and the ravines were held in common. One hundred 

 and ninety-one families desired to have their holdings given them in pri- 

 vate ownership, the rest wished to retain theirs in communal ownership. 

 It was decided to divide the nadiel, so that the northern part might be 

 given to those who wished to withdraw from the mir. Of the latter 

 class ninety-nine families settled upon the tracts assigned them, ninety- 

 two settled in eight groups upon sites purposely chosen at some distance 

 from each other for villages. This arrangement was made for the bene- 

 fit of those who felt it necessary for the sake of social intercourse to live 

 in the near vicinity of neighbors yet who wished also to be relatively 

 near their fields. Farms whose owners live in the village are known as 

 otroubs. This arrangement is at present very common in Eussia. Often 

 it is doubtless an intermediate stage. In the course of time many fam- 

 ilies living in villages will move to their farms, provided they are able 

 to find good drinking water there or in the near vicinity. The mujih 

 does not mind carting his water in barrels over long distances but there 

 is a limit to the time he can spend in this occupation. A single well 

 frequently serves an entire village. 



Here is another example of the kind of task the government may be 

 called upon to perform. A village that has worked its nadiel in com- 

 mon since the time of the emancipation or that, while holding it in 

 common, has parcelled it out periodically among its families, decides 

 at a meeting of the adult men to go over to private ownership. The 

 proper request is laid before the district commission and the surveys 

 begin. The first question has to do with the roads. In central Eussia 

 particularly the old ones are meandering and very broad. Why take the 

 trouble to fill in wagon ruts that have become hopelessly deep when it is 

 possible to drive alongside of them? And when new ruts have been 

 formed these, too, can be left to care for themselves. Thus the old 

 roads lost whatever straightness they may originally have had and 

 stretched to a great width. New ones must be carefully laid out. 

 Next comes the question of water. It is the ideal of the government to 

 persuade each family to live on the tract allotted it and with this end 

 in view the commission frequently offers to assist the mujih with the 

 money necessary to transport his old dwelling or to put up a new one, 

 the sum to be paid back in fifteen years without interest, although oc- 

 casionally in extraordinary circumstances it is an outright gift. Often, 

 however, the absence of water or the expense involved in sinking deep 

 wells makes it necessary for the peasants to live in groups. In this case 

 sites must be selected for these so-called daughter-villages. Then comes 



