GENERAL OUTLINE OF THE NEW RUSSIAN LAND REFORMS 151 



equal to that which would have had to be sold in 1905, in order that all 

 the nadiel lots of less than 5 deciatines each might be increased to the area 

 of 5 deciatines. 



A large part of the reserve land of the Bank is, however, situated 

 in regions in which the peasants least require land ; it is very diffic- 

 ult to form a considerable reserve in regions where the need of increas- 

 ing the lots is greatest. Thus, of the 5,000,000 available deciatines, 

 not less than 1,500,000 were situated in the Governments of Saratov and 

 Samara, where the average area of the nadiel is between 10.4 and 21.6 

 deciatines, whilst there is scarcely any land available in the Governments 

 of Little Russia and of the South West, as large estates in those regions 

 are comparatively few. 



The only means of meeting the difficulty here is for a part of the peas- 

 ants insufficiently suppUed with land in the Governments of the South West 

 and Centre of Russia to sell their nadiel lots to their commune and use the 

 produce of the sale and the credit granted to them by the Peasants' Bank 

 for establishing themselves in the Eastern Provinces. This Eastward 

 movement has indeed long commenced and in its general features is entirely 

 similar to the emigration to Siberia, for the same reasons, of entire Russian 

 villages. 



There are also two other difficulties impeding this gigantic undertaking 

 for the sale of land, namely the impossibility of rendering all the land 

 bought utilisable for the peasants and the difficult of keeping all under 

 cultivation up to the moment when it may be profitably sold again to 

 the peasants. With regard to the first of these difficulties, our last table 

 provides the following figures: 320,000 deciatines (not utilisable by peas- 

 ants) on July ist.. 1910, and 478,518 deciatines on January ist., 1912. 

 Practically, the area of this land inci eases with the purchases, since on 

 many of the landed estates, there are portions (forests, parks, brickfields etc.) 

 not utilisable for home colonisation. 



In virtue of instructions received in February, 1908, the Bank is provid- 

 ing for the reduction of losses in jdeld and in capital (value of the land) through 

 the difficulty of keeping the farms bought for sale to the peasants under 

 cultivation. The provincial sections of the board of the Bank have been 

 ordered first of all to lease the land for short terms and keep the buildings 

 in repair. 



In spite of inevitable defects and errors in the work of colonisation on 

 such a scale, the principal part of the land reserve of the Bank has already 

 passed into the hands of the peasants, especially of the small farmers most 

 in need of it. This is seen in the statistics collected by the Peasants' Bank 

 for the years 1908-09, classifying the purchases according to the area of 

 their holdings (i). 



(i) Report of the Peasants' Bank for the period 1906-10, p. 33. 



