from serfage to free labour, and what revenues do they now derive from
their estates? The answer to these questions will necessarily contain
some account of the present economic position of the proprietors.

On all proprietors the Emancipation had at least one good effect: it
dragged them forcibly from the old path of indolence and routine and
compelled them to think and calculate regarding their affairs. The
hereditary listlessness and apathy, the traditional habit of looking on
the estate with its serfs as a kind of self-acting machine which must
always spontaneously supply the owner with the means of living, the
inveterate practice of spending all ready money and of taking little
heed for the morrow--all this, with much that resulted from it, was
rudely swept away and became a thing of the past.

The broad, easy road on which the proprietors had hitherto let
themselves be borne along by the force of circumstances suddenly split
up into a number of narrow, arduous, thorny paths. Each one had to use
his judgement to determine which of the paths he should adopt, and,
having made his choice, he had to struggle along as he best could. I
remember once asking a proprietor what effect the Emancipation had had
on the class to which he belonged, and he gave me an answer which is
worth recording. "Formerly," he said, "we kept no accounts and drank
champagne; now we keep accounts and content ourselves with kvass."
Like all epigrammatic sayings, this laconic reply is far from giving
a complete description of reality, but it indicates in a graphic way
a change that has unquestionably taken place. As soon as serfage was
abolished it was no longer possible to live like "the flowers of the
field." Many a proprietor who had formerly vegetated in apathetic ease
had to ask himself the question: How am I to gain a living? All had to
consider what was the most profitable way of employing the land that
remained to them.

The ideal solution of the problem was that as soon as the peasant-land
had been demarcated, the proprietor should take to farming the remainder
of his estate by means of hired labour and agricultural machines in West
European or American fashion. Unfortunately, this solution could not
be generally adopted, because the great majority of the landlords, even
when they had the requisite practical knowledge of agriculture, had not
the requisite capital, and could not easily obtain it. Where were they
to find money for buying