Note 21 — Chapter II · COMMUNITY OF LAND.

Cf. Mr. Greegoryeff’s Report to the XVII. Assembly of the Gubernia of Ryazañ, p. 5. Cf. also Emigration among the Peasants of the Gubernia of Ryazañ, by the same author, which I have not now at hand. In Eastern Russia the subdivision of the arable land is but of very recent date. In Siberia it cannot be traced farther back than two generations, and there are even now a great many districts in which no limitations are imposed by the community on the free use of land by every one of its members. Nevertheless the poll tax was applied to these districts also for about two centuries. It seems to prove that the imposition of the said tax did not necessitate subdivision except where land was scarce. It may consequently be inferred that it was not the poll tax, but the scarcity of land in the most crowded provinces, that prompted the subdivision. In this view the subdivision of the land appears to be a natural phase in the evolution of communal landholding. (With reference to this point cf. Prof. W. J. Ashley’s remarks in his introduction to Fustel de Coulanges’ The Origin of Property in Land, pp. xlvii-xlviii.)