Each Cossack who wished to raise a crop ploughed and sowed wherever he thought fit, and retained as long as he chose the land thus appropriated; and when the soil began to show signs of exhaustion he abandoned his plot and ploughed elsewhere.

But this unregulated use of the Communal property could not long continue.

As the number of agriculturists increased, quarrels frequently arose, and sometimes terminated in bloodshed.

Still worse evils appeared when markets were created in the vicinity, and it became possible to sell the grain for exportation.

In some stanitsas the richer families appropriated enormous quantities of the common land by using several teams of oxen, or by hiring peasants in the nearest villages to come and plough for them; and instead of abandoning the land after raising two or three crops they retained possession of it, and came to regard it as their private property.