One mention of the serfs (who were now nearing freedom) occurs in a letter Tolstoy wrote to Fet on 23rd February 1860, in reply to a note in which the latter had expressed a wish to buy an estate, settle down in the country, and devote himself to farming. Tolstoy replies that there is an estate for sale adjoining his own, containing: Four hundred desyatíns of good land with, unfortunately, seventy souls of bad serfs. But that does not matter; they will gladly pay quit-rent [in lieu of personal service] as mine do, at the rate of Rs. 30 a _tyaglo_ [man and wife with an allotment of land] or Rs. 660 for the twenty-two _tyaglos_, and you will get not less than that, if not more, at the Emancipation, and will have sufficient unexhausted land and meadow left to yield about Rs. 2000 a year, or over Rs. 2600 in all. The price asked for the estate is Rs. 24,000, besides a mortgage of about Rs. 5000.... At any rate it would be a good bargain to buy it for Rs. 20,000.... The seller is an old man who is ruined, and wants to sell it quickly in order to get rid of his son-in-law. He has twice sent to offer it me. The above calculation shows what the estate should yield in a couple of years' time if about Rs. 5000 be spent on improving it; but even in its present condition one can answer for a return of Rs. 1500, which is more than 7 per cent. on the cost. In Russia to buy serfs was not then considered more discreditable than it is in England to-day to buy shares in a china or match factory; and in the same letter Tolstoy goes on to discuss literature: