er. The other two kinds of
dues, as more important, we must examine more closely.

When a proprietor had abundance of fertile land and wished to farm on
his own account, he commonly demanded from his serfs as much labour as
possible. Under such a master the serfs were probably free from money
dues, and fulfilled their obligations to him by labouring in his fields
in summer and transporting his grain to market in winter. When, on the
contrary, a land-owner had more serf labour at his disposal than he
required for the cultivation of his fields, he put the superfluous serfs
"on obrok,"--that is to say, he allowed them to go and work where they
pleased on condition of paying him a fixed yearly sum. Sometimes the
proprietor did not farm at all on his own account, in which case he put
all the serfs "on obrok," and generally gave to the Commune in usufruct
the whole of the arable land and pasturage. In this way the Mir played
the part of a tenant.

We have here the basis for a simple and important classification of
estates in the time of serfage: (1) Estates on which the dues were
exclusively in labour; (2) estates on which the dues were partly in
labour and partly in money; and (3) estates on which the dues were
exclusively in money.

In the manner of exacting the labour dues there was considerable
variety. According to the famous manifesto of Paul I., the peasant could
not be compelled to work more than three days in the week; but this law
was by no means universally observed, and those who did observe it had
various methods of applying it. A few took it literally and laid down
a rule that the serfs should work for them three definite days in the
week--for example, every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday--but this was
an extremely inconvenient method, for it prevented the field labour
from being carried on regularly. A much more rational system was that
according to which one-half of the serfs worked the first three days of
the week, and the other half the remaining three. In this way there was,
without any contravention of the law, a regular and constant supply of
labour. It seems, however, that the great majority of the proprietors
followed no strict method, and paid no attention whatever to Paul's
manifesto, which gave to the peasants no legal means of making formal
complaints. They simply summoned daily as many labourers as they
required. The evil consequences of this for the peasants' crops were in
part counteracted by