In Siberia, as stated already, great land-owners are non-existent. The soil is, therefore, exclusively in the hands of the peasants, but up to the present the _mir_ collective communal property-ship, as is found throughout Russia, is quite exceptional, and then only in the more sparsely peopled parts of the west. Since 1896, however, the Government has decided to introduce, if not practically, at least theoretically, the _mir_ principle as it exists in European Russia. Nevertheless, in Siberia the commune is not supposed to possess property, but simply to hold it on the principle of usufruct, the whole land belonging to the Crown. In those parts of the country which are nearly uninhabited the _zaïmka_ system still holds good, whereby a peasant, although he may be a resident in a village, is allowed to build himself a hut on the steppe or in the forest where he passes the summer, and where he can cultivate and even enclose one or two large fields which are supposed to belong to him, and which he can sell or give away as he pleases, and which, in point of fact, he owns by right of being the first occupant; but this system is only provisional. With the increase of population it gives place to another, whereby the peasant is not considered an absolute proprietor, but only for so long as he chooses to cultivate his land properly. From the moment he ceases to comply with this condition another man can take his land. Everybody is allowed to cut hay in the prairies where he likes, and the pastures and woods are common property. On the other hand, it is forbidden to enclose any forest or pasture-land.