Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 13 - From Marx to Mao

AGRARIAN QUESTION AND “CRITICS OF MARX”193David made on the basis of the general statistics of Germanagriculture:Per hectare of land there wereTotal number of Weight of totallivestock (inlivestockterms of cattle) in kilogrammes1875 1884 1875 1884(a) Estates 0.77 0.59 408 367(b) Farms of 25 ha and over 0.63 0.57 238 244(c) ” ” 7.5 to 25 ha 0.71 0.72 254 277(d) ” ” 5.5 to 7.5 ” 0.85 0.94 288 328(e) ” ” up to 2.5 ” 1.02 1.18 286 355Average 0.77 0.76 273 294The figures of the number of livestock per hectare ofland are the figures to which David confines himself. Inour example, as in German agriculture as a whole, thesefigures show a reduction in the number of livestock per unitof land area in the big farms. In 1884, for example, thesemi-proletarian farms had exactly twice as many cattleper hectare as the big capitalist farms (1.18 as against 0.59).But we are already aware that this estimate seeks to comparethe incomparable. The actual relationship between the farmsis shown by the figures for weight of livestock: in this respect,too, large-scale production is in a better positionthan small-scale, for it has the maximum of livestock inweight per unit of land area, and consequently, also themaximum of manure. Thus, David’s conclusion that, onthe whole, the small farms are better supplied with manureis the very opposite of the truth. Moreover, it must be bornein mind, first, that our figures do not cover artificial fertilisers,which only well-to-do farmers can afford to buy;and secondly, that comparing the amount of livestock byweight puts cattle and smaller animals on the same level,for example, 45,625 kilogrammes—the weight of 68 headof cattle in the big farms and 45,097 kilogrammes—theweight of 1,786 goats in the small farms (1884). Actually,