Note 169 — Chapter XIII · AGRICULTURE ON A LARGE SCALE.
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The socialistic aversion of the Russian peasantists to the “exploiters” was somewhat tainted with the patrician prejudices against the merchant. The Russian magazines were crammed with touching descriptions of how the poetry of a shadowy oak alley in the old garden of the noble slave-owner was ruthlessly sacrificed in favor of prosaic timber by the boorish parvenu (tchoomáziy). It was universally believed that the merchant who engaged in land tenure was something of a dynamiter, whose element was destruction for the mere devilish voluptuousness of destruction. To devastate the forests while re-renting the land to the peasant at an exorbitant interest—this appeared to be the only aim of the merchant. Statistical investigations did away with these naive conceptions. Here are some of the facts brought to light by the Ryazañ census:
1. Bailiwick Naryshkinskaya, d. Ranenburg. “The lack of land to rent is keenly felt. The condition of the communities under discussion has grown much worse as compared with former years. The main reason thereof is the considerable decrease in the area leased by landlords and the rise of rental prices, which is closely connected with the passage of the estates of the nobility into the hands of merchants through either sale or lease.” (L. c., vol. II., part I., p. 282. No. 3-4, 6-9.)
2. Village Prosech’ye, same district. “Since their former master sold his estate to the merchant, neither land nor easements are to be got anywhere. The new owner cultivates everything for himself.” (L. c., p. 305, No. 13.)
3. Village Cheglokovo, b. Vednovskaya. “The condition of the peasants grew much worse after their former master sold his estate, about 1870, to a merchant, who has almost entirely stopped leasing land. The master, on the contrary, used to lease much of his land, and the peasants assert that they then made a pretty good living.” (Ib., p. 325, No. 5. Cf., also, Nos. 6, 7.)
4. B. Troitskaya. “Tenure is a rare exception, since the landlords either carry on their own farming or have leased their estates to big farmers, who cultivate everything for themselves.” (Ib., p. 309.)
5. B. Hrushchovskaya, Dankoff. “All the landlords in the neighborhood either carry on their own farming, or have leased their estates to merchants, who cultivate solely for themselves. The peasants can positively get no land for rent, except a small tract of meadow.” (L. c., part II., p. 208. Cf., also bailiwick Ostrokamenskaya, p. 211, and b. Odoevskaya, p. 230.)