With respect to possession of forests, so necessary in a climate like Russia, most of the state peasants were originally in a privileged condition, compared with the former serfs, to whom, as a rule, no woodland at all was allotted.[30] However, time has effaced all distinction between the privileged communities and those less fortunate. Of the former forests there remain at present only shrubs, and young bushes, of no practical value. State peasant and former serf are equally dominated by the want of fuel, a want which must be satisfied with the only burning material at hand, _viz_: with dung. In many a community this precludes the fertilizing of the soil altogether; in a great many others it is but the land next to the homestead that is manured, and the poorest among the peasants have no manure at all worth carrying to their fields. It is needless to speak of the extent to which this contributes to the rapid exhaustion of the soil.[31] Apart from these general conditions, we cannot pass by without notice certain special circumstances that continually depress the level of the peasants’ agriculture in a number of villages inhabited by former serfs. The reform of 1861 was not carried out without serious troubles which in certain cases called for the intervention of armed force. As an example we may quote the village Speshnevo, bailiwick (_volost_) Hrushchefskaya, Dankoff district. We find the following in the _Statistical Reports_: “In 1861 the peasants refused to accept the present tract, which was allotted to them in the place of one they had formerly held. The latter was far superior as regards both situation and quality. They stopped ploughing for seven years and finally agreed to accept the tract only after a detachment of soldiers had arrived at the village.” “The village is now surrounded by property that is owned by strangers. The plots owned by the peasants begin at a distance of 1400 feet, and extend about 3½ miles. The peasants are very frequently fined for damage done by the cattle to the fields of the landlords of the neighborhood.”[32] Behind this dry, matter-of-fact statement, is hidden the story of a system of trickery practiced, at the time of the emancipation, by the masters and the subservient officials. The land was, in some cases, purposely divided in such a way as to create for the peasants the necessity of an easement or servitude (_servitus itineris, actus, aquæ etc._), in the master’s estate. The tract given in possession to the peasants is situated, at least in part, far away from their villages, sometimes without even a road for driving, and stretched in a long and narrow strip. Not to speak of the waste of time in going to and fro, it would not pay to manure the distant tracts. Thus in addition to the immediate injury to the peasants aimed at by this system, a large portion of land is lost to all rational culture.[33]