Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 85.djvu/595

Rh was that strict justice should prevail, that the ratio between the value of the land held and the annual payment made by the family should be the same in every case. The nadiel, the land acquired by the community when emancipated, was, therefore, divided into units of equal value, one or more of these units being assigned to each family.

There were three principle methods of division and all of these resulted in cutting the land up into minute parcels. It may be interesting, by way of illustration, to consider in detail the method which was followed, for the most part in central Russia. The nadiel, leaving out of account pastures and woods which were ordinarily held in common, was first divided into three fields to provide for a rotation of two different kinds of grain and fallow. Each one of these fields was then divided with reference to quality. Areas of good black loam, of sandy, clayey and other kinds of soil were carefully delimited. Each one of these areas was then divided into a fixed number of strips equal to the number of units needed at the time by the community. Each unit contained one strip of every kind of soil in each of the three fields. The number of strips in a unit was comparatively few in lands of uniform quality and many, fifty, eighty, one hundred or even more, in lands that varied much. In any case it was certain that each unit possessed exactly the value of every other unit. Here was justice but at what a price! Land cut up into such bits that it could be tilled only with the simplest implements, endless time lost in going from one parcel to another, sameness of crops necessitated by the fact that all must sow and all must reap at the same time. More often than otherwise the only approach to a strip was across other strips. Once these had been seeded they barred the way. The absence of fences made it impossible to plant anything that would mature after the neighboring fields had been cut. The cattle having been turned into the stubble of these fields would eat the adjoining not yet ripened harvest. And what soil rendered utterly fruitless in boundary lines, the furrow used to separate the strips being sometimes one fourth as wide as the strips themselves.

For long years the Russian mujik was slow to grasp these disadvantages. He was used to community life. He liked doing what his neighbors did. Why not all plant rye and buckwheat? Did they not all eat black bread and kasha? What better than hemp and flax for the weaving of household stuffs? The fields were a long way off—yes, but it was God's will, and one must be willing to harness the horse to the teléga and begin the five mile journey at break of day. And when one grew hungry and thirsty there was the loaf brought along and the keg of water hung on the hooks at the back of the wagon. True the fields were sometimes so far away that it was necessary to spend nights there, but the earth was a good place upon which to sleep, the baby's crib could be suspended from two poles fastened in the ground and the mother and children could help gather the precious kernels. Such sights are