_To 1 horse _Land, _Horses._ on an average, _District of Voronezh._ Dessiatines._ Dessiatines._ On large estates under cultivation (land in small tenure excluded) 86360 1708 50.5 In the district at large 434372 52465 8.3 It follows from these figures that the landlords’ stock is hardly sufficient for the cultivation of one-sixth of the land which is virtually farmed by the owners of large estates. Quite naturally, from the agronomic standpoint the Russian “bonanza farms” have very little advantage over small peasant farming. The primitive division of the arable land into three well-nigh equal fields, of which one is yearly left unsown, prevails on the large estates as well as on peasant farms.[156] The tillage with the antediluvian peasant plough (_sohá_) is very imperfect, while improved ploughs are not in common use, and wherever they are, one plough is found for every 91.2 dessiatines (246 acres) of arable land. Superficial tillage strains the productive forces of the upper layers of the soil, while lack of live stock prevents the fertilizing of the land on a reasonable scale, the fields being manured on an average once in eighteen years.[157] Large farming thus partakes of the wasteful character of small peasant agriculture, and proves therefore almost as little productive, a fact shown by the comparative yields of cereals:[158] +-----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------------+ | | Rye. | Oats. | | +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+ | Classes of farms. | Ratio to | | Ratio to | | | | the seed. | Per cent. | the seed. | Per cent. | |-----------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+ | | | | | | |On peasant farms | 5.3 | 100 | 4.6 | 100 | | | | | | | |On large estates | | | | | | (over 50 dessiatines) | 7.3 | 138 | 5.8 | 126 | +-----------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+ Still, even that slight increase of productivity is sufficient to make large farming prevail over small peasant tenure: