92 RUSSIA - AeRICULTURAL ECONOMY IN GENERAL 



This table gives us a deep insight into the whole agrarian revolution 

 which is being accorhplished in European Russia. Of the 14,183 farms on 

 nadiel territory investigated the land was before the settlement held in one 

 strip in onty 553 (3.9 per cent.) ; and in 2,898 (20.4 per cent.) was divided 

 into from two to five strips. The land of the other farms was scattered in six, 

 twenty, forty or even more than a hundred strips. This parcelling of 

 the land of a holding was especially marked in the provinces of Ostrov 

 (Government of Pskov), Sitschevka (Government of Smolensk) and in Mo- 

 loga (Government of Jaroslav), where farms having less then eleven separ- 

 ate parcels of land were not be met with at all. Of the whole number of 

 the farms investigated scientific agriculture was in consequence possible 

 only in 24.3 per cent. After the settlement not a single farm remained 

 which included more than ten separate parcels of land, and even such num- 

 ber was foimd only in few (0.6 per cent.) ; in 3,751 farms (26.4 per cent.) 

 the land had been united into one piece to form houtor farms ; in 48.9 per 

 cent, of the whole number it had come to be divided into two ; and in 17.7 

 per cent, into three pieces. It is to be noted moreover that the site of the 

 homestead was reckoned as a separate piece. If this circumstance be taken 

 into account it appears that almost half the total number of farms had had 

 their land unified into one piece. If to these the houtor farms be added, 75.3 

 per cent, of the total number are found to have had their lands made contig- 

 uous. The chief evil of the conditions of peasant farming, the great par- 

 celling of the land and the extent to which the parcels were scattered, has 

 been if not entirely removed yet much reduced. 



Certain rights, such as those in woodland, meadows and gardens, have 

 not come within the scope of the unifying process because the}^ have a par- 

 ticular value distinct from average values. Therefore it has been necess- 

 ary to deliver land divided into from four to five parcels to 6.4 per cent, of 

 the farms. There were also lands unfit to be tilled which could be used 

 only for herding cattle. Such lands, which formed 10 per cent, of the 

 whole area settled, were left as common meadows. This was the more ne- 

 cessary because at the beginning of the settlement the questions of fodder 

 and of the use of grass pasture were not settled, and therefore a sharp 

 break in the tenure of the huts standing on the summer meadows, which 

 hitherto had been common property, was to be avoided if possible. Many 

 peasants before the time of the enquiry of 1913 bought new land in addi- 

 tion to that awarded to them under the settlement, to which they thus 

 added a second piece. The unification of such bought land with the nadiel 

 land was first made possible by the law of 29 May (11 June) 1911 which had 

 force from 15 (28) October. The bought land was until 1911 so regulated 

 that it could not be used for the farms formed up to that date. This partly 

 explains why in 21 per cent, of the houtor and otroub farms investigated 

 there were altogether, besides the settled land, 26,863 deciatines not in- 

 cluded in the unified farm land. 



As regarded the remoteness of the peasants' lands from their home- 

 steads remarkable results were, as appears from the table, also attained ; 



