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Agriculture in the Russian Empire throughout the 19th-20th centuries represented a major world force yet it lagged behind other developed countries. Russia was amongst the largest exporters of agricultural produce, especially wheat, while the Free Economic Society made continuing efforts to improve farming techniques. The Russian peasant (male) was colloquially called krestyanin (), female form of this word is krestyanka (), plural - krestyane (). Some arrogate this meaning to word muzhik, moujik () 〔() The World Book Dictionary〕 (man), and this word was calqued into Western languages through translations of Russian literature of 19th century,〔(The Durham University journal - Volumes 45-46 - Page 237 ) *Snippet: ''Thus a Russian-English dictionary will give the Russian word muzhik as 'peasant'. Yet the English word 'peasant' brings to mind a being far different from the Russian muzhik who, unlike his Western counterpart, is presented to us in literature ...''〕 that described Russian rural life of that times, and where really word ''muzhik'' were used in meaning of most common rural dweller - peasant, but that was only a narrow contextual meaning of the word. Muzhik is plain traditional word that means just "man" (mature male human), and in more civil language it can mean "plain man". Female equivalent word is baba (). ==Geography and crops== The black-earth belt (or ''chernozem'') stretched in a broad band north-east from the Romanian border to include the Ukraine, Central Agricultural Region, Middle Volga, south-west Urals and south-western Siberia. This expanse, together with the alluvial zone of the Kuban in the North Caucasus, constituted the fertile `grain-surplus' steppe areas of cereal production. In the non-black earth grain-deficit areas, with their poor soils, the peasants turned to cottage industry (and increasingly factory industry), as well as livestock breeding and the cultivation of vegetables and industrial crops, to make up their livelihoods. They relied on `imports' from the grain-surplus regions to make up the deficiency of cereals. Rye and oats were the traditional grains. Before the Emancipation of the serfs in 1861 wheat was mainly grown on the demesnes of the landlords of the grain-surplus areas, and mainly for export abroad. But during the 20th century wheat progressively replaced rye as the principal grain crop.〔Lazar Volin, ''A Survey of Soviet Russian Agriculture'' (United States Department of Agriculture, Agriculture Monograph no. 5 (c.1950 )), p.122; J C Dewdney, ''The USSR in Maps'' (Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1982), p.40.〕 Row and industrial〔In Soviet nomenclature industrial crops were called `technical crops'.〕 crops were more remunerative than grain, or at worst provided their cultivators with extra income or consumables (hence they were called `cash crops'). Their cultivation spread steadily during the late 19th and earlier 20th centuries, and they were increasingly grown as part of improved crop-rotations (see below). Flax and potatoes were grown in the west, north-west, Central Industrial Region and the Urals; sugar-beet in the northern Ukraine and Central Agricultural region; sunflower in south-eastern Russia and the southern Ukraine; cotton in central Asia and Transcaucasia. By 1917 most vegetables and industrial crops were grown by the peasants. By this time sugar-beet was the only culture to be grown mainly on large estates (and this too largely fell into peasant hands as a result of the Revolution). These cultures require much more work than grain (hence called `intensive cultures'). Before the mechanization of agriculture potatoes needed 64 man-days of labour a year per ''desyatin'' (1 ''desyatin'' is about 1.1 hectare), flax or cotton up to 110 man-days, sugar-beet as much as 180. This compared with only 30 and 23 man-days a year for winter and spring grain respectively.〔Naum Jasny, ''The Socialized Agriculture of the USSR'', p.146; V P Danilov, ''Rural Russia Under the New Regime'' (Hutchinson, 1988) (translation of ''Sovetskaya dokolkhoznaya derevnya: naselenie, zemlepol'zovanie, khozyaistvo'' (1977 )), pp.269, 277-86; Lazar Volin, ''A Survey'', p.130.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Agriculture in the Russian Empire」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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