242 



Cheap Land and Low Wages. 



Vol. V. 



wife, constitutes a very common team. The 

 implements of husbandry are mean, the har- 

 ness without leather or iron ; the wagons 

 mere planks set against upright stakes fixed 

 to the sides ; the cattle attached by ropes and 

 straw collars; no roller, the clods being 

 broken by hand ; the seed, while sowing, be- 

 ing carried in the skirts of the frock of the 

 man who scatters it. 



The land is divided into six classes, the 

 rent of the lowest being calculated at 14 

 cents per acre, for the purpose of levying the 

 taxes, which is 25 per cent, on the rental. 

 The inhabitants live in dwellings provided 

 with few conveniences, and on the lowest 

 and coarsest food ; potatoes, rye and buck- 

 wheat their only food ; linen and woollen 

 spun by their own hands, coarse, and worn as 

 long as they will hold together, furnish their 

 dress; whilst an earthen pot that will bear 

 the fire, forms one of their most valuable ar- 

 ticles of household furniture. If they have 

 bees and a plot of chicory, their produce 

 serves as a substitute for sugar and coffee ; 

 but too often even these go to market to 

 raise the pittance which the tax-gatherer de- 

 mands, while their mud houses admit the 

 peltings of the storm through abundance of 

 crevices. In common seasons they suffer 

 much from destitution in winter, while in 

 times of scarcity, such as followed the disas- 

 trous harvest of 1816, their distress, and con- 

 sequent mortality, is dreadful. The most 

 numerous class of cultivators have a limited 

 property in the lands they occupy, under the 

 condition of labouring a stipulated number of 

 days in each week for the lord of the estate, 

 and paying specific quantities of produce, 

 such as poultry, eggs, yarn, &c. ; and al- 

 though they are not slaves, yet they are in a 

 condition of great distress, and involved in 

 debt to the lord, so that, although they have 

 the right to leave his service, they must first 

 acquit his pecuniary demands, which fev; in- 

 deed are able to do ; and it rarely happens, 

 therefore, that they ever quit the lands upon 

 which they were born. Many estates re- 

 main without occupiers; one gentleman, who 

 could get no tenant, was under the necessity 

 of farming his land himself, and to induce 

 persons to come to him, he granted them 

 large portions of the land, built them houses, 

 supplied them with oxen and implements, 

 sowed their land the first year, and fed them 

 until it was converted into food, yet found it 

 a most ruinous concern. And although the 

 inhabitants are not slaves, their condition is 

 not much removed from that state, for when 

 a transfer of property is made, their services 

 are always accounted the most valuable part 

 of it. Their houses, on these farms, are built 

 of wood covered with straw, consisting of 

 one room only, with a stove, around which 



they and their cattle crowd together, where 

 the most disgusting kinds of filthiness are to 

 be witnessed; their common food cabbage, 

 potatoes sometimes, peas, black bread and 

 soup, without the aid of butter or meat! 

 Very little attention is paid to their educa- 

 tion, and they are generally ignorant, super- 

 stitious and fanatical ; passing much time in 

 pilgrimages, in counting beads, and similar 

 occupations. As may be naturally inferred, 

 labour is performed in the most negligent 

 manner, for where no advantage is gained by 

 care in the work, it will be imperfectly exe- 

 cuted ; all the operations of husbandry, there- 

 fore, are ill performed, the ploughing very 

 shallow and irregular, the harrowing inef- 

 fectual, the roller unknown, and thus the 

 land is filled with weeds of every description, 

 rendering a complete fallow necessary every 

 third year; the course being, fallow, a win- 

 ter crop of grain, a summer crop of grain, 

 and then fallow again : the wheat receiving 

 the benefit of the very little manure that ia 

 raised from their few miserable cattle. On 

 a pattern farm of 3000 acres, managed with 

 skill by the proprietor, with no rent to pay, 

 no profit had been obtained by him for the 

 last four or five years; but in the generality 

 of farms, and under inferior management, the 

 statement would be found even lower than 

 this, the greater part not yielding, perhaps 

 by a third, as much as the estate here men- 

 tioned. 



But the lands belonging to the crown are 

 difl^erenlly circumstanced ; they comprehend 

 one-third of the whole surface, or about ten 

 millions of acres, two millions in wood, the 

 remainder being arable, and leased to ten- 

 ants, who are exempt from some of the taxes 

 to which other occupiers are subject; but 

 with this freedom from taxation, the lands are 

 let very low, somewhat less than six cents 

 an acre, and yet it is found that this rent can- 

 not be afforded ; the tenants are falling into 

 arrears, and the hope of receiving many of 

 them has been abandoned, while in other 

 cases the rent can only be paid in grain- 

 Land, belonging to individuals, and subject to 

 tax, brings but little rent ; a farm of 7000 

 acres being let for a term of six years at 4 

 cents per acre ; another of 4000 acres, within 

 twelve miles of Warsaw, with an excellent 

 road to within a mile of it, rents for seven 

 cents per acre, on a six years' lease, and yet 

 the tenant has been hitherto compelled to 

 pay the whole amount of rent out of his pri- 

 vate capital. 



Amongst the real Poles, there are only 

 two classes of persons, the noble proprietor 

 and the wretched peasant ; the gentry, too 

 proud to follow any but the military career, 

 and the government encouraging the feel- 

 ing, although the pay is barely sufficient to 



