Russia under the Old regime

THE ENVIRONMENT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

create an additional difficulty for the Russian peasant. He must confine his livestock indoors two months longer than the western farmer. His cattle thus misses out on the early spring grazing, and when finally set free in the meadow it is in a thoroughly emaciated condition. Russian livestock has always been of an inferior quality, notwithstanding attempts by the government and enlightened landlords to improve it; imported western breeds have promptly degenerated to the point where they became indistinguishable from the miserable domestic variety. The difficulties in raising livestock have discouraged efficient meat and dairy farming in the forest zone. They have affected adversely the quality of the draught animals and caused perennial shortages of manure, especially in the north, where it is most needed.

The consequence of Russia's poor soil, unreliable rainfall and brief growing season have been low yields.

Agricultural yields are most meaningfully measured in terms which indicate how many times the seed reproduces itself: when, for example, one grain cast at sowing time gives five grains at harvest, we speak of a yield ratio 115. The typical yield ratio in medieval Europe was 1:3 or at best 1."4, the minimum yields which make agriculture worth while and create conditions capable of sustaining life. A 1:3 ratio, it must be noted, means an annual doubling rather than tripling of tht sown seed, because each year one of every three grains harvested must be set aside for seed. It also means that one acre of arable out of every three has to be devoted to seed production. In the second half of the thirteenth century, west European yields began to experience a significant rise. The principal cause of this phenomenon was the growth of cities, whose trading and manufacturing population had given up growing food, buying it from farmers instead. The emergence of a rich urban market for cereals and other produce encouraged western landlords and peasants to raise a surplus by more intensive use of labour and heavier manuring. In the late Middle Ages, western yields rose to 1."5, and then, in the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they improved further to 1:6 and 1:']. By the middle of the nineteenth century, countries with advanced farming, headed by England, regularly obtained yields of 1:io. Such a dramatic improvement had an even greater economic significance than might appear at first glance. Where the soil can be depended upon regularly to return ten grains for each grain sown, the farmer needs to set aside for seed only a tenth of the land and a tenth of the harvest, instead of a third of each, as he must do under a 113 yield. The net return on a 1:io yield is 4^ times what it is on a r:3 yield, making it theoretically possible to sustain in a given area that many more inhabitants. The cumulative effect of such a surplus over a number of years can be readily appreciated. It may be said that civilization begins only