104 RUSSIA - AGRICULTURAI, ECONOMY IN GENERAL 



(2) rye crop followed by sowing of clover; (3) clover of the first year; (4) clover 

 of the second year ; (5) flax, and (6) oats. If the market for flax be good, flax 

 also forms the sixth crop. This system reduces by half the extent of land 

 which lies fallow under the three-field system, and moreover two divisio'ns 

 are planted with fodder grasses (clover) which, as is well known, enrich 

 the soil with nitrogen. In other districts — as in Krasnoufimsk, Orel and to 

 some extent in Jepif any — the improvement of agriculture is directed princi- 

 pally towards growing fodder grasses. A whole series of transitory systems, 

 intervening between three-field and more-field farming, is to be met with 

 everywhere. As yet they have not crystallized but they have broken 

 away from the rigidity of three-field farming. 



In the southern districts, remarkable for black earth, wheat grow- 

 ing outweighs all other forms of agriculture. The fertility of the soil makes 

 manuring almost superfluous. The improvement in agriculture has here 

 especially affected the technique of farming : fields are ploughed more often, 

 stubble is turned, sowing is done by machinerj^ fallow land, whether black 

 earth, virgin or previously ctdtivated soil, is brought under cultivation, and 

 so forth. This leads too to retention of humidity in the soil, a matter which 

 in the south is very important. New crops are also planted, as vetch, clo- 

 ver, lucerne grass. The three-field system thus loses ground of necessit5^ 

 In the district of Bogoduchov, for example, under the influence of the model 

 fields, the following four-field system has been introduced : (i) virgin, clean 

 and manured fallow land sown with vetch as situation allows ; (2) winter 

 rye slowly replaced by winter wheat ; (3) millet, buck-wheat, potatoes, beet- 

 root or beans, that is plants requiring a medium amount of labour ; (4) 

 summer barley. The crops on the third of these divisions —the hoed crops 

 — take up on an average 12 per cent, of the whole cultivated area, on hou- 

 tor farms 18 per cent. 



On farms on nadiel land the transition to better agricultural systems 

 is on the whole more marked than on those on lands of the Peasants' 

 Agrarian Bank and the crown. That the better methods of distributing 

 crops and employing the soil have already had good results, and that the 

 yield of the newh' settled peasants' farms has largely increased, appear 

 from the following table, in which comparisons are made in the case of 

 crops of six kinds for the years 191 2 and 191 3. 



