Apart from these general conditions, we cannot pass by without notice certain special circumstances that continually depress the level of the peasants’ agriculture in a number of villages inhabited by former serfs.
The reform of 1861 was not carried out without serious troubles which in certain cases called for the intervention of armed force. As an example we may quote the village Speshnevo, bailiwick (volost) Hrushchefskaya, Dankoff district. We find the following in the Statistical Reports:
“In 1861 the peasants refused to accept the present tract, which was allotted to them in the place of one they had formerly held. The latter was far superior as regards both situation and quality. They stopped ploughing for seven years and finally agreed to accept the tract only after a detachment of soldiers had arrived at the village.”
“The village is now surrounded by property that is owned by strangers. The plots owned by the peasants begin at a distance of 1400 feet, and extend about 3½ miles. The peasants are very frequently fined for damage done by the cattle to the fields of the landlords of the neighborhood.”[32]
Behind this dry, matter-of-fact statement, is hidden the story of a system of trickery practiced, at the time of the emancipation, by the masters and the subservient officials. The land was, in some cases, purposely divided in such a way as to create for the peasants the necessity of an easement or servitude (servitus itineris, actus, aquæ etc.), in the master’s estate. The tract given in possession to the peasants is situated, at least in part, far away from their villages, sometimes without even a road for driving, and stretched in a long and narrow strip. Not to speak of the waste of time in going to and fro, it would not pay to manure the distant tracts. Thus in addition to the immediate injury to the peasants aimed at by this system, a large portion of land is lost to all rational culture.[33]
In short, the effects of the scarcity of land are summed up in the lack of animal power, which is no unimportant drawback to agricultural progress, and in the predatory character of the peasant farming.
This can be easily figured from the yields of rye and oats, the principal crops raised by the peasantry[34]:
| Countries. | Yield Per Acre. | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rye. | Oats. | |||
| Bushels. | Per Cent. | Bushels. | Per Cent. | |
| Russia,[35] District of Ostrogozhsk, Gubernia of Voronezh, average for 10 years (1877-1886) | 8.9 | 100 | 10.7 | 100 |
| United States, average for 10 years (1880-1889) | 11.9 | 134 | 26.6 | 249 |
| Ontario, Canada (1889-1890) | 15.5 | 174 | 30.7 | 287 |
| Great Britain (1889-1890) | 40.3 | 377 | ||
| France (1888-1889) | 16.1 | 181 | 26.1 | 244 |
| Germany (1890) | 14.7 | 165 | 30.1 | 287 |
| Austria (1889) | 14.5 | 163 | 17.6 | 164 |
| Hungary (1889) | 13.8 | 155 | 17.4 | 163 |