To sum up, it is thanks solely to the obstinate persistence of backward methods in Russian agriculture that the nobility is able to maintain its position.
The biggest of the aristocratic landlords are the only ones who can keep on capitalizing a part of their net income.[175]
On the whole, the existence of the nobility as an agricultural class is closely dependent upon the continued vegetation of a class of peasants, who are farmers and laborers at once, or who, to express it more accurately, are neither farmers nor laborers. We have seen what is the trend of the times with regard to this class of peasantry. The former masters will inevitably share the fate of their former serfs.
CHAPTER XIV.
CONCLUSION: THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE FAMINE.
The conclusions drawn from the previous discussion of the economic structure of the Russian village must be taken with a threefold limitation.
In the first place, the science of statistics is essentially a science of large numbers. There are many questions, by no means unimportant, which it has been impossible even to touch upon, their discussion being feasible only where large agricultural areas are concerned.
In the second place, inasmuch as the facts and deductions have only a local basis, the question arises whether the conclusions drawn would also hold good when applied upon a larger scale.