[21] _Cf._ Mr. Greegoryeff’s _Report to the XVII. Assembly of the Gubernia of Ryazañ_, p. 5. _Cf._ also _Emigration among the Peasants of the Gubernia of Ryazañ_, by the same author, which I have not now at hand. In Eastern Russia the subdivision of the arable land is but of very recent date. In Siberia it cannot be traced farther back than two generations, and there are even now a great many districts in which no limitations are imposed by the community on the free use of land by every one of its members. Nevertheless the poll tax was applied to these districts also for about two centuries. It seems to prove that the imposition of the said tax did not necessitate subdivision except where land was scarce. It may consequently be inferred that it was not the poll tax, but the scarcity of land in the most crowded provinces, that prompted the subdivision. In this view the subdivision of the land appears to be a natural phase in the evolution of communal landholding. (With reference to this point _cf._ Prof. W. J. Ashley’s remarks in his introduction to Fustel de Coulanges’ _The Origin of Property in Land_, pp. xlvii-xlviii.) [22] Mr. Pankeyeff makes in one passage an allusion to the analogy between the development of quarterly landholding into agrarian communism and the transformation of the right of first possession into communal ownership in New Russia and in the _gubernia_ of Voronezh (_Cf._ _op. cit._, book III., p. 35). The analogy, however is not further worked out. [23] The extent of the three forms of possession to-day is shown in the following table: +--------------------+-------------------+---------------------------+ | |Communities. | Extent of land. | | | | | | | +--------------+-------------+-------------+ | | |Households. | Communal | Quarterly. | |Forms of possession.| | | proper. | | | | | +-------+-------+-----+-------+-----+ | | | |Inhab- |Dessia-|Per |Dessia-|Per | | | | |itants.|tines. |cent.|tines. |cent.| +--------------------+----+------+-------+-------+-----+-------+-----+ |Quarterly | 33 | 2,180| 15,071| 3,754 | 11 |29,598 | 89 | | ” and Communistic| 12 | 1,639| 11,037| 9,210 | 45 |11,213 | 55 | |Communistic proper | 45 | 9,319| 62,114|99,493 | 99.5| 493 | 0.5| +--------------------+----+------+-------+-------+-----+-------+-----+ [24] _Cf._ Table of the Distribution of Land and Population, in the Appendix. [25] The appendices to the _Statistical Reports_ contain some figures for the comparison between the extent of land formerly held by the serf and now owned by the free “peasant-proprietor.” In 117 out of 562 communities of former serfs, there were held by the peasants: