+---------------------+---------+---------------+------------+ |Forms of Landholding.|Number of|Number of Males| Land in | | |villages.| and Females. |dessiatines.| +---------------------+---------+---------------+------------+ |Quarterly possession | 176 | 11,265 | 64,811 | |Agrarian communism | 56 | 21,283 | 84,448 | |Mixed | 55 | 12,627 | 49,508 | +---------------------+---------+---------------+------------+ Here also agrarian communism developed from quarterly possession. The process went on after 1849, without even stopping after the reform of 1866, by which the land held by the former _odnodvortzy_ was recognized as their private alienable property. The progress of agrarian communism between 1849 and 1882 can be seen from the following table:[20] EXTENSION OF QUARTERLY POSSESSION. _Population (males and females.)_ In 1849. In 1882. Ranenburg 19,714 4,213 Dankoff 10,509 6,089 What appears here in most striking contradiction with the ideas universally adopted by modern writers, is the inverse historical correlation between these two forms of possession. This fact seems to offer a new argument in favor of the theory which regards community of land as a derivative form of ownership owing its origin to the policy of the State. Prof. Tschitscherin, the author of this theory, maintains that the land community was called into life by the ukases of Peter I establishing the poll tax and the responsibility _in solido_ of all members of the community for the punctual payment of the tax. A full discussion of the issue in controversy does not come within the scope of this essay; for whatever may have been the origin of the land community, its existence during the past two centuries is a fact beyond dispute; and it is only the period after the emancipation that constitutes the immediate subject under consideration. Moreover, the theory belongs to an epoch when the study of the history of the Russian peasantry was yet in its infancy. In the course of the last thirty years this special branch of knowledge has progressed enormously, and Prof. Tschitscherin’s views have been since abandoned by the students of the history of Russian law. A few remarks will suffice for the purpose of the present discussion, inasmuch as no one to-day believes that communism in land sprang, like Minerva, from the head of some administrative Jupiter.