_Average size _Land rented (by _Tenants (in _Class I., D. of Korotoyak._ of a farm, 1 household) every 100 dessiatines._ dessiatines_ households)._ Farmers merely 24.4 5.1 54 Traders 21.9 11.4 73 ---- ---- -- In the district at large 14.2 4.2 42 Concentration of the communal land proves to be the general basis of the economic welfare of the class under consideration.[117] Under the rule of the _mir_ a large farm means a strong patriarchal family; the preservation of the latter is equally characteristic of the trader as of the mere farmers of the class, and appears to be even somewhat more pronounced among the former than among the latter.[118] On the other hand, farming with the help of hired labor has enormously advanced among this section of the village community; it may be said that the employing farmer is a member of this progressive class _par excellence_.[119] The growth of this form of agricultural coöperation is going on within the class under consideration keeping pace with the dissolution of the patriarchal family.[120] _Ad III._ The rural proletariat is generally marked by the absence of live stock to till the land with.[121] The class in question is formed of those peasants whom it did not pay to work on their farms, in view of the scarcity of the same. Nearly one-half of the class are landless or own less than five dessiatines, the percentage of such households being three times greater than among the peasantry at large. Only a very small minority are in the possession of plots exceeding the average, the percentage being three times less than among the peasants at large. On the whole, a holding of a proletarian is half the average in the district.[122] This is the immediate result of the complete dissolution of the patriarchal family among the village proletariat, the bulk of the latter consisting of families with only one adult male worker.[123]