CHAPTER VII.
THE PEASANTRY OF THE NORTH Communal Land--System of Agriculture--Parish Fetes--Fasting--Winter Occupations--Yearly Migrations--Domestic Industries--Influence of Capital and Wholesale Enterprise--The State Peasants--Serf-dues--Buckle's "History of Civilisation"-- A precocious Yamstchik--"People Who Play Pranks"-- A Midnight Alarm--The Far North.
Ivanofka may be taken as a fair specimen of the villages in the northern half of the country, and a brief description of its inhabitants will convey a tolerably correct notion of the northern peasantry in general.
Nearly the whole of the female population, and about one-half of the male inhabitants, are habitually engaged in cultivating the Communal land, which comprises about two thousand acres of a light sandy soil.
The arable part of this land is divided into three large fields, each of which is cut up into long narrow strips.

The first field is reserved for the winter grain--that is to say, rye, which forms, in the shape of black bread, the principal food of the rural population.

In the second are raised oats for the horses, and buckwheat, which is largely used for food.

The third lies fallow, and is used in the summer as pasturage for the cattle.
All the villagers in this part of the country divide the arable land in this way, in order to suit the triennial rotation of crops.

This triennial system is extremely simple.