THE RESUI,TS OF THE NEW AGRARIAN REFORM 93 



but this evil can be entirely cured only when the site of the homestead is 

 removed to the otrouh. 



After the settlement 1,292 peasants (7.4 per cent.) (i) sold the entire 

 holdings of nadiel land allotted to them, and 1,121 (6.4 per cent.) sold part 

 thereof, such sales including altogether 2,413 farms having a total area of 

 18,766 deciatines. Among the caiises for these sales is the circumstance 

 that many peasants live outside their farms, being occupied as employees 

 or labourers, and have long since lost all connection with the land ; and 

 that for others their holdings had become too small and they sold them in 

 order to emigrate to Siberia or to buy larger holdings from the Land Bank 

 or the crown. The nun of some farms, whether as a result of bad harvests, 

 cattle disease, the lack of labour in a family or other cause, was also instru- 

 mentat in bringing about sales. The average price of the land uas raised 

 by almost 50 per cent, after the settlement. 



In Siberia and European Russia 22,022 deciatines were bought b^^ the 

 peasants after the settlement, that is more than the 18,766 deciatines which 

 they sold. This is proof that the economic basis of the newly formed peas- 

 ants' farms is firm and solid, and that even in the initiatory period, when 

 farming had to be fundamental^ reorganized, most of the peasants were 

 able to increase the area and importance of their farms by buying land. The 

 number of farmers who took land on lease after the settlement increased in all 

 the provinces except Mologa. The average area of leasehold land belong- 

 ing to a farm decreased however ; and so did also the number of lessees, 

 even considered in relation to the decline of the average area of leasehold 

 land. Rents rose very notably after the settlement. The question of the 

 subdivision of farms among heirs received very particular attention at the 

 enquir3^ The number of farms thus subdivided — 323 (2.2 per cent.) — 

 was small and 752 farms had been formed from them. The position of 

 these resultant farms was in general not prosperous. In order to provide 

 in the future against the formation of such economically weak and unpro- 

 fitable peasants' farms the Chief Office of L,and Organization and Agricul- 

 ture has placed before the Duma a scheme for a law, entitled " Measures 

 for I^essening the Subdivision of the lyands of Small Farms formed with 

 State Aid ". 



§ 6. IvAND SETTLEMENT ON THE LANDS OF THE PEASANTS' LAND BANK 

 AND ON CROWN LANDS. 



I/and settlement is generally far easier on lands acquired from the Peas- 

 ants' Ivand Bank or the crown than on nadiel land. In the case of the former 

 it is not necessar\', as in the work of unifying strips of land of differing values 

 on nadiel land, to give when measuring and allotting any attention to the 

 present and past interests of the villagers. Onty considerations of a tech- 

 nical kind have to be taken into account when the crown and bank laud are 



(i) Eight farms which arose as a consequence of subdivision by inheritance are included. 



