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By the sixteenth century the scattered plots and rudimentarytechnique were giving way on the estates of thebig landowners to relatively more intensive cultivation ona two- or three-field basis, with some dunging and withnucleated villages; and after the Time of Troubles(1604-13; see pp. 82-83 and 151-152) development wasrapid into the open, three-field communal system, withscattered individual strips, typical of medieval westernEurope and henceforward of Russia right down to theRevolution. Rye was the staple crop; barley, oats, andsome wheat were grown; but the grain supply of themixed forest zone was uncertain. The ,north-west wasalways dependent on imports and, as the population grew,the whole of this zone, together with the northern pineforests, has been classed as the 'consuming provinces' forthe last two hundred years.Around Novgorod and in the upper Volga region flaxand hemp were grown from very early times and became,together with the handicrafts based on them, increasinglyimportant. From the eighteenth century they formedone of the chief items of Russian exports and developedinto a large-scale modern industry. Stock-raising, fordraught animals, hides, and tallow, was originally of moreimportance than in the recent centuries when Muscovycould draw on the steppes to the south.The forest, much diminished though it was by thesixteenth century, especially in its fur value, continuedto be the close concomitant of agriculture that it hadalways been; supplying the wherewithal for implementsand transport, as well as fuel, building material, tar, anda whole range of other industries, many of which laterbecame specialized in particular villages still of muchrenown and prosperity only half a century ago.Thus from early times the Russia of the mixed forestzone was built upon a diversified economy, long beforethe rapid growth of the Moscow cotton industry, datingfrom the Napoleonic wars, and of St Petersburg as amanufacturing centre. For the serfs of this regionseasonal or permanent labour in industries, in the forests,later in factories, was a regular subsidiary or alternativeto work on the land, and hence labour services due to the25