The conclusion which can be drawn from the facts as presented above is that quarterly landholding, is but an archaic form of communal landholding, and follows no exceptional course in its development, though that development has been somewhat retarded. CHAPTER III. THE PRODUCTIVE FORCES OF THE PEASANTRY. The old laws governing the State peasants, before the reform of 1866, fixed the normal size of the plots at eight dessiatines (about 21 acres) to each male “of the revision” (_i. e._, included in the last preceding census) for the “regions where land is scarce.” By the reforms of 1861 and 1866, not a single class of peasants was granted the extent of land that the state of agriculture in the district under consideration called for,[24] and the average tract owned by the more comfortably situated State peasant is only a little more than one-half of this normal plot as it was empirically fixed; of course, the normal extent of a farm is subject to change through increase of population and progress of agricultural methods. Let us see how large is the extent of land actually required by, but not in the possession of, the peasantry of the districts under review. The table on the top of the next page gives the total number of communities, in which all the householders were able to carry on farming with their own stock and implements. The favorable condition of these few communities was due to the fact that the land rented and acquired as private property by the prevailing majority equalled in extent the communal tract. The communities in question occupied, as a whole, over one-half more land than the average.