1 12 RUSSIA - AGRICULTURAI. ECONOMY IX GENERAL 



of this factor of the origins of the farms is influenced — strengthened or 

 weakened — by other forces. Thus most of the torps — 31 of them alto- 

 gether — lie in the colonies in which farming is at its weakest, namely in 

 Nipuli and Koskipaa. 



The circumstance is nevertheless noteworthy that the yearly increase 

 in value of the farms on the entirely new sites is higher than that of those 

 occu])ying the sites of torps. 



Conclusion. 



We will now briefly resume all that is contained in the foregoing para 

 graphs. 



The enquiry into the lots colonized by peasant smallholders has very 

 indubitabl}^ given the information that the colonizing enterprise of the State 

 has been crowned with success. Bj' the institution of an especial credit 

 fund for the landless population, by furnishing the colonists with cheap 

 land credit, by the formation of a lease office, and by enlisting the aid of 

 co-operation for the purpose of acquiring land, colonizing enterprise has 

 succeeded in strengthening the position of the colonists as farmers of the lots 

 they have acquired, in providing them with a sure livelihood, and in attach- 

 ing them to their native soil. The happiness which once they sought over 

 seas, which once called them to America, that belauded country, they now 

 find more easily within their own land. Naturally much energy, activity 

 and intense industry is demanded of the colonists : but nowhere can a man 

 advance himself if he keep his hands in his pockets ; and from the social 

 point of view the efforts which colonists nmst make on the land are 

 certainly not more injurious to them than those incumbent on workers 

 in factories and State industries. There must be economy, every step 

 forward must be accomipanied by economical housekeeping, if the deve- 

 lopment of a colonist's lot is to be at all reasonably profitable. But the 

 awakening of an agricultural sense, the education in thrift especially of 

 the unendowed populace — these constitute, as the author observes, so 

 lofty, so important and so educational an aim, that it alone gives great 

 significance to colonizing enterprise. 



When the new State colonizing enterprise in Finland was initiated 

 Profes.sor Hamer Gebhard (i), the well-known creator of the P'innish 

 co-operative movement, wrote as follows : 



" There are too many families in Finland who own neither land nor 

 house. There are at the same time vast extents of uncultivated territory 

 of which part might be cultivated... It behoves that with the help of capital 

 these two factors, the man and the land, be united : the result will be for 



(i) Atlas df statistique socialc sur Ics communes rurales dc Finlandc en igoi. Hel- 

 singfors, 1908. p. 57. 



