The Economics of the Russian Village

by Isaac A. Hourwich

Arable land yearly under cultivation.	Payment in money, Dessiatines.	Payment in share of crops, Dessiatines.	In all.
			Dessiatines.	Per cent.
In small peasant tenure	24226	1083	25309	40
Cultivated by the large farmer	37183	1028	38211	60
Total[159], dessiatines	61409	2111	63520
Per cent.	97	3	..	100

Another reason for the prevalence of large farming over small peasant tenure is to be found in the greater economic dependence of the farm laborer as compared with the tenant, while the laborer, being a farmer himself, saves his employer the investment of fixed capital.

Nevertheless a certain outlay of capital for the payment of wages was necessitated by the development of money economy in agriculture. This has drawn the line between the smaller and the larger estates.

While on the smaller estates peasant tenure is practiced to the extent of excluding landlord agriculture, on the larger estates, on the contrary, peasant tenure plays but a subordinate part:

I. System of management.	Number of estates.	Total extent.		Average Dessiatines.
		Dessiatines.	Per cent.
Estates without arable land	14	5117	4
Estates exclusively in small tenure	64	15605	12	244
Estates with large farming	190	109615	83	577
Management not stated	11	1616	1
Total	279	131953	100	473

II. Ploughland yearly under culture.	Dessiatines.	Per cent.
Total on the estates with large farming	52627	100
Cultivated by the owners	37183	71
In small peasant tenure	15444	29

Small peasant tenure is a very ruinous management of large estates, inasmuch as the land allotted in tenure is, as a rule, never manured.[160] The above figures testify therefore to a certain progress of agriculture on the larger estates. Farming without fertilizing the soil is found only on the smallest estates, which do not reach even the average size of those exclusively in peasant tenure.[161] On larger estates application of manure goes hand in hand with the culture of more valuable crops.

On peasant farms, as well as on the smaller estates approaching the standard of peasant agriculture, rye is found to be the only winter crop[162]; whereas on the larger estates it has been supplanted to a vast extent by winter wheat:

Estates with large agriculture.	Number of estates.	Dessiatines.					Wheat to total winter crops (per cent.).
		Total extent.	Average extent.	Winter crops.
				Total.	Rye.	Wheat.
Wheat not grown	96	34453	359	4444	4444	..	..
Wheat grown	94	75162	800	12744	8171	4573	36
Total	190	109615	577	17188	12615	4573	..