International Statistical Institute. 369 



areas not only in Europe, but latterly in America. They 

 showed an increase in some, though not in all, countries of 

 cattle, and a very general decrease in the flocks of continental 

 Europe, a decline, which the more recent figures show, 

 extends to the United States. The loss of sheep was happily 

 not so perceptible in the United Kingdom, despite the many 

 tons of mutton it receives from the expanding flocks of 

 Australasia a,nd Argentina. 



The Russian communications included notices of varied 

 statistics from nearly 5,000,000 households locally collected 

 by the Zemstvos, or local councils, and respecting 

 the many changes which ware becoming evident 

 in the condition of the Russian peasantry. Special attention 

 was drawn to the statistics of sales of land in a single year in 

 Russia, which showed that in twelve months 5,646,000 acres 

 had been sold by the nobles, and only about half that area 

 repurchased, something like 2,700,000 acres thus passing out 

 of the nobles' hands into those of peasants of various grades, 

 co-operative associations of peasants and local communes, or 

 purchasers of the merchant class. 



It was pointed out in the discussion on Russian agricul- 

 tural conditions that the patriarchal customs of rural life 

 were disappearing. Formerly nearly all the population of 

 the villages devoted themselves to agriculture ; now factories 

 and mills were springing up, and the rapid growth of certain 

 towns was evidenced by the figures of the census. The old 

 three course system of rotation was being abandoned around 

 Moscow, and fodder plants were being cultivated. Better 

 implements were in demand, and in the south the upper class 

 of peasants now rarely dispensed with threshing and reaping 

 machines, and where the peasants were unable to purchase 

 these individually, they were co-operating in groups for the 

 purpose. Changes were occurring in the distribution of 

 landed property, and in common lands, as where the land of 

 the mir was now apportioned according to the number of 

 mouths in the parish. Alongside of the communal posses- 

 .sions, free associations were being formed to buy or lease 

 farm lands. The old equality of fortune distinguishing the 

 •earlier rural life was passing into the sphere of legend. 



A a 



