The following figures may serve as an illustration:
| Status of owners. | Percentage of the area. | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Estates under 50 dessiatines. | Estates over 50 dessiatines. | |||
| Ryazañ. 1881. | Voronezh. 1884. | Ryazañ. 1881. | Voronezh. 1884. | |
| Nobility | 13.9 | 32.0 | 74.5 | 80.1 |
| Peasants | 77.7 | 44.2 | 2.4 | 3.6 |
| Merchants & “hon. citizens.”[168] | 1.2 | 8.2 | 20.4 | 14.5 |
| Burghers, clergy, etc. | 7.2 | 15.6 | 2.6 | 1.8 |
| Total | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
The growth of capitalistic tenure furthers the progress of capitalistic agriculture. The small tenant is being superseded by the large business man (or merchant, to use the Russian expression), exploiting the land by means of wage labor. This is proved by the following figures:
| Systems of management. | Property of the nobility. | Property of the capitalist class. | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of estates. | Total extent. | Average (dessiatines). | Number of estates. | Total extent. | Average (dessiatines). | |||
| Dessiatines. | Per cent. | Dessiatines. | Per cent. | |||||
| Estates exclusively in small tenure | 51 | 13942 | 13.4 | 273 | 13 | 1664 | 6.3 | 128 |
| Estates without tillage land | 5 | 794 | 0.7 | .. | 9 | 4323 | 16.3 | .. |
| Estates with large agriculture | 123 | 90223 | 85.4 | 734 | 67 | 19391 | 73.4 | 289 |
| Management not stated | 6 | 556 | 0.5 | .. | 5 | 1060 | 4.0 | .. |
| Total | 185 | 105515 | 100 | 576 | 94 | 26438 | 100 | 281 |
The nobility has proved able to farm only on the largest estates. Where the nobleman would merely distribute his estate in small lots among peasant tenants, the capitalist landholder carries on agriculture on a large scale:
| Dessiatines. | |
|---|---|
| Average holding of a noble in small peasant tenure | 273 |
| Average holding of a capitalist with farming on a large scale | 289 |
The average holding on which peasant tenure pays the capitalist better than farming, is less than one-half the corresponding size of a noble’s estate. Accordingly we find that wherever the capitalist has replaced the noble, the exclusive practice of small peasant tenure has lost over one-half of its area:
| Estates in small peasant tenure. | Percentage in the area. |
|---|---|
| Property of the nobility | 13.4 |
| Property of the capitalists | 6.3 |