any impulse from theory, simply as a spontaneous outgrowth of
popular life. When workmen from any province come, for instance,
to St Petersburg to engage in the textile industries, or to work as
carpenters, masons, &c., they immediately unite in groups of ten
to fifty persons, settle in a house together, keep a common table
and pay each his part of the expense to the elected elder of the
artel. All over Russia there is a network of such artels—in the
cities, in the forests, on the banks of the rivers, on journeys and
even in the prisons.
The industrial artel is almost as frequent as the preceding, in all those trades which admit of it. Artels of one or two hundred carpenters, bricklayers, &c., are common wherever new buildings have to be erected, or railways or bridges constructed; the contractors always prefer to deal with an artel, rather than with separate workmen. It is needless to add that the wages divided by the artels are higher than those earned by isolated workmen.
Finally, a great number of artels on the stock exchange, in the seaports, in the great cities, during the great fairs and on railways have grown up, and have acquired the confidence of tradespeople to such an extent that considerable sums of money and complicated banking operations are frequently handed over to an artelshik (member of an artel) without any receipt, his number or his name being accepted as sufficient guarantee. These artels are recruited only on personal acquaintance with the candidates for membership. Co-operative societies have also been organized by several zemstvos. They have achieved good results, but do not exhibit, on the whole, the same unity of organization as those which have arisen in a natural way among the peasants and artisans.
The chief occupation of approximately seven-eighths of the population of European Russia is agriculture, but its character Agriculture. varies considerably according to the soil, the climate and the geographical position of the different regions. A sinuous line drawn from Zhitomir via Kiev, Tula and Kazañ to Ufa—that is, from W.S.W. to E.N.E. separates the “northern soils” from the “southern soils.” To the S. of this line, as far as the sandy deserts of Astrakhan and the steppes of N. Caucasia, lies the black earth region. Broadly speaking, the forests here yield to steppes, and the soil is very fertile; but the whole region suffers periodically from drought. The “northern soils,” which are glacial deposits more or less redistributed by water, are much less fertile as a rule, and consist of all possible varieties from a tough boulder clay to loose sand. Both N. and S. of this line it is customary to distinguish several zones, lying, generally, parallel to it, and differentiated chiefly by climatic differences. In the tundras of the extreme N. agriculture does not exist; the reindeer constitutes the principal wealth of the nomad Samoyedes and Lapps. In the forest region S. of the tundras, which extends over an area of more than 500,000 sq. m., agriculture is carried on with great difficulty, not only because of the infertility of the soil, but also because of the severity of the climate and the fact that there are only three to four months in the year during which agriculture can be carried on. Apart from hunting and fishing, the exploitation of the forests provides the principal occupation of the inhabitants. Crops, chiefly barley, rye, oats, turnips and green crops, are, however, grown on clearings in the forest, though the yield is poor. S. of 60° N. agriculture becomes the predominant industry, while the exploitation of the forests plays only a secondary part. In this zone, which extends over an area of nearly 600,000 sq. m., and on the S. touches the agrarian line already mentioned, the principal crops are rye and oats, with barley and wheat coming next, though flax and green crops are also grown. Cattle have to be housed for the winter. In the W. of this zone, that is in the Baltic provinces, the climate is less severe as well as moister. Agriculture is carried on in a more intelligent manner, and the yield is higher. Flax is almost of as much importance as wheat, and the potato is more cultivated than in any other part of Russia. Hardy fruit thrives, and live-stock breeding prospers. In the W. governments of Kovno, Vitebsk, Vilna, Mogilev, Minsk and Grodno the climate is more temperate, but agriculture is more backward than in the Baltic provinces. The three-field system of cropping a patch of land until its fertility is exhausted, and then allowing it to revert to the primeval condition, is still pursued, and both landowners and peasantry suffer from want of capital and lack of agricultural training. Flax is one of the principal exports of this region, timber being another.
In middle Russia the winters are both longer and harder, and agriculture is consequently carried on under greater difficulties. One of the most serious of these is caused not by the unfavourable character of the climate but by the shortness of labour. Since their emancipation in 1861, the peasants of the central governments of Russia have in large numbers drifted away into the black earth zone, or have gone to the factories. The methods of agriculture are still unscientific and unprogressive. Rye is the staple crop, though buckwheat, flax, green crops and the potato are cultivated in considerable quantities.
Agriculture is most advanced in the W. of the black earth zone, that is in the governments of Kiev, Podolia, Poltava and in part of Kharkov. The winters are less severe, and modern agricultural machinery is generally employed, at all events on the larger estates. In consequence of these more favourable conditions there is greater variety in the cropping; a good deal of wheat is grown, as well as beetroot for sugar, fibre plants and oleaginous plants, fruit, and even (W. of the Dnieper) the vine. Live-stock breeding is likewise in a more prosperous condition. The rest of the black earth zone, which stretches from these governments N.E. to the Volga, is less favoured by nature; the winters are longer and more inclement, and droughts are not uncommon. When this happens there is great suffering from famine, for wheat is the crop upon which the people principally depend, though rye, buckwheat and oats are also cultivated. But a long course of continuous cropping with these grain crops, without affording compensation to the soil in the form of manure or deep cultivation, has so exhausted it that its productiveness has sadly deteriorated. The consequence is that the peasantry are constantly in a state bordering on destitution, and exposed to the horrors of famine, like those which visited them in 1890 and 1898, and threatened in 1907.
S. of the above zone come the S. steppes. In the W., in Bessarabia, the three chief products are maize, wine and hardy fruit, especially plums. Here the climate is temperate and fairly moist, but farther E. it is distinctly more arid. Wheat is the principal crop, with barley second. Water-melons, sun-flowers and flax, both the last two for oil, are usual crops. But the breeding of horses and sheep is of equal importance with agriculture. Here again both capital and labour are short, and the cultivation of the soil suffers from the fact that, owing to the absence of timber, dry dung is used for fuel instead of being employed as manure. The steppe conditions extend over the greater part of the Crimea and up to the foothills of the Caucasus. The actual distribution of arable land, forests and meadows, in European Russia and Poland is shown in the following table:—
| European Russia. | Poland. | |||
| Acres. | Percentage. | Acres. | Percentage. | |
| Arable land | 301,435,000 | 26 | 16,900,000 | 53 |
| Meadows and pasturages | 185,498,000 | 16 | 6,059,000 | 19 |
| Forests | 452,152,000 | 39 | 7,334,000 | 23 |
| Uncultivated | 220,279,000 | 19 | 1,594,000 | 5 |
| Total | 1,159,364,000 | 100 | 31,887,000 | 100 |
The land in European Russia and Poland (Caucasia being excluded) is divided amongst the different classes of owners as follows:—
| European Russia. | Poland. | |||
| Acres. | Percentage. | Acres. | Percentage. | |
| State and imperial family | 400,816,000 | 35 | 1,808,000 | 5½ |
| Peasants | 446,657,000 | 38½ | 13,584,000 | 42½ |
| Private owners, towns, &c. | 245,835,000 | 21 | 15,106,000 | 47½ |
| Unfit for cultivation | 66,056,000 | 5½ | 1,389,000 | 4½ |
| Total | 1,159,364,000 | 100 | 31,887,000 | 100 |
Down to January 1st 1903, the peasants had actually redeemed out of the land allotted to them in 1861 a total of 280,530,516 acres. In Poland the peasants as a body have, in addition to the land thus assigned to them by the government, bought some 2½ million acres since 1863, and of this quantity they purchased no less than 1,600,000 acres, or 64% of the whole, between 1893 and 1905.
Taking the whole of European Russia and Poland, almost exactly two-thirds of the total area is sown every year with cereals. But generally in from 18 to 33 out of the 72 governments in European Russia (including Caucasia) and Poland the yield of cereals is not sufficient for the wants of the people. In 30 to 40 governments, however, there is in most years a surplus available for export. Out of the total acreage under cereals 34% is generally sown with rye, 26% with wheat, 20% with oats and 10½% with barley. Beetroot (6-8 million tons annually) for sugar is especially cultivated in Poland, the governments of Kiev, Podolia, Volhynia, Kharkov, Bessarabia and Kherson. About 100,000 tons of tobacco are grown annually in the S. Flax and hemp occupy considerable acreages in central and N.W. Russia. The vine is cultivated as far N. as 49° N. (in Bessarabia, Crimea, Don Cossacks territory and Caucasia), the annual production of wine amounting to 35-50 million gallons, three-fifths in Caucasia. Market-gardening and fruit-growing are profitable occupations in certain parts of S. and central Russia, and have led recently to the establishment
