62 THE RED FOREST AND 



sodden through, while my face was like that of a 

 plaster cast with its eyes bunged up. 



It is a pitiful thing to see all this useful land 

 untilled, and all the peasantry and the country 

 itself so poor. My friend the Russian telegraph 

 clerk told me a few more reasons besides the per- 

 petual ' prasnik ' for the want of agricultural energy 

 and success in the Caucasus. The very abundance 

 of land is an evil to the short-sighted Russian 

 peasant. Here in the Caucasus I am told every 

 ' soul ' (the Russian phrase for every male subject) 

 is allowed sixteen dissatines (acres) free of charge, 

 and he may choose his land pretty well where he 

 likes. The result is, the moujik argues with him- 

 self pretty much after this fashion : ' In this par- 

 ticular spot where my cottage is, my corn won't 

 grow well, elsewhere it would grow better, and in 

 a third place another crop would find a fitter soil.' 

 So on this principle of not trusting all his ventures 

 to one bottom, he takes a few dissatines here and 

 another few ten versts off, and still more beyond. 

 In this way he wastes an infinite amount of time in 

 making perhaps a threshing floor at each different 

 farm, or in conveying the crop from one farm to 

 another to be threshed. Add to this that water has 

 often to be fetched from afar, that his tools arc of 

 the rudest, and that his men are, even if all were 

 workers even in the English sense, far too small for 

 the acreage, and you have some reasons for the 



