The statisticians necessarily started in their investigations with preconceived ideas respecting the uniformity of the peasantry[113] as a class, except in so far as legal discriminations had to be taken into account. The study of the facts brought them subsequently to a recognition of the true position, and in some of the later _Reports_ attempts were made to arrange the data according to class distinctions. The main difficulty in the question is as to what proof should be selected for classification. The characteristics of employer and employee would cover only a minor part of the peasantry of to-day,[114] not to speak of a certain vagueness of the terms, as explained above. Mr. Shtcherbina, Superintendent of the Statistical Department of Voronezh, has classified the peasants according to: 1, the size of their farms, 2, the quantity of stock raised, 3, the number of adult male workers to a household, and 4, to the occupation by which they supplement the insufficient income derived from their plots. The households are accordingly scheduled into 320 minute sections, so as to afford the opportunity of subsequently combining them into wider social classes. We shall divide the peasantry into three main classes: I. Those whose income from farming is sufficient to meet all the expenses of the household (taxes included), so as to obviate any need of wage earnings. Households that pay their expenses by the income from commercial or industrial enterprises and draw a net profit from agriculture, are also included in that class. II. Farmers who are at the same time wage laborers, either in agriculture, or in industry. III. Proletarians, _i. e._ those who stopped working on their plots and earn their living exclusively by means of wage labor. Let us examine these classes in detail. _Ad I._ Combine all merely agricultural groups in which the income from farming exceeds the expenses of housekeeping, taxes and rent, and in which, furthermore, all the householders cultivate their plots with their own stock and implements. The results are presented in the following tables: _1. Balance Sheet._ _Households, 1501, D. of Korotoyak._ _Receipts._ _Expenses._ _Rubles._ _Rubles._ Gross income from farming 185171 Expenses of housekeeping 77004 Rent 33000 Taxes 59094 ------ ------ Total 185171 169098 Net profit 16073 ------ ------ 185171 185171 Net profit to 1 household upon an average 10.70 _2. Land to 1 farm._