Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 3 - From Marx to Mao

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA
279
in one district, and another aspect in another, which is
why identical economic relations are manifested in the most
varied forms of agronomy and everyday life.
Having established the fact that in the area described, too,
the peasantry splits up into opposite classes, we shall easily
achieve clarity about the contradictory opinions usually
expressed as to the role of dairy farming. Quite naturally,
the well-to-do peasantry receive an incentive to develop and
improve their farming methods and as a result grass cultivation
is widespread and becomes an essential part of commercial
stock-farming. The development of grass cultivation
is observed, for example, in Tver Gubernia; in Kashin Uyezd,
the most progressive in that gubernia, as many as one-sixth
of all peasant households plant clover (Returns, XIII, 2,
p. 171). It is interesting, moreover, to note that on the purchased
lands a larger proportion of arable is occupied by
herbage than on the allotments: the peasant bourgeoisie
naturally prefer private ownership of land to communal
tenure.* In the Survey of Yaroslavl Gubernia (Vol. II, 1896)
we also find numerous references to the increase in grass
cultivation, and again mainly on purchased and rented
lands.** In the same publication we find references to the
spread of improved implements: iron ploughs, threshing
machines, rollers, etc. Butter and cheese making, etc., are
developing very considerably. In Novgorod Gubernia it was
noted as far back as the beginning of the 80s that along with
a general deterioration and diminution of peasant stockbreeding,
there was an improvement in certain individual
localities where there was a profitable market for milk and
where the milk-feeding of calves was an old-established
industry (Bychkov: An Essay in the House-to-House Investigation
of the Economic Position and Farming of the Peasants
* A substantial improvement in the maintenance of cattle is
observed only where there has been a development in the production
of milk for sale (pp. 219, 224).
** Pp. 39, 65, 136, 150, 154, 167, 170, 177 and others. Our pre-
Reform system of taxation retards the progress of agriculture here
too. “Owing to the congestion of the farmsteads,” writes a correspondent,
“grass cultivation has been introduced all over the volost;
the clover, however, is sold to cover tax arrears (91). The taxes in
this gubernia are sometimes to high that the peasant who leases his
land has himself to pay a sum to the new holder of the allotment.