Is Science Enough?: The Limits of Scientific Agriculture in Nineteenth-Century Russia within a Global Market

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Is Science Enough?: The Limits of Scientific Agriculture in Nineteenth-Century Russia within a Global Market

S. Smith-Peter

Достаточно ли науки? Ограниченность возможностей научных методов ведения сельского хозяйства России на глобальном рынке XIX века

С. Смит-Питер

Городской университет Нью-Йорка (США)

В статье выдвинуто предположение, что распространение научной информации не всегда является достаточным для успешной производительности любой конкретной страны на глобальном рынке. В частности, в XIX веке в России существовали значительные барьеры для применения технологий разведения улучшенных пород домашнего скота. Хотя сельскохозяйственные общества -- добровольные объединения российского дворянства -- вели существенную работу по распространению научных методов разведения домашнего скота в России, успех на глобальном рынке шерсти был кратковременным. Изучение взаимовлияния отечественного и глобального рынков является ключевым для более глубокого понимания вызовов, стоящих перед российским сельским хозяйством.

Ключевые слова: наука; сельское хозяйство; домашний скот; овцы; добровольные объединения; гражданское общество; глобализация; история России; российское сельское хозяйство

The earlier prestige of English agriculture was augmented by the influence of the Scottish Enlightenment. In particular, the works of Adam Smith offered a guide to transition from what we would now call feudalism to a commercial society marked by free markets, free labor, and civil society. Smith's thinking on free labor and the necessity of ending systems of unfree labor was based on a moral rejection of slavery, as we see in his 1759 work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Here he described Africans as noble savages and stated that “[f]ortune never exerted more cruelly her empire over mankind, than when she subjected those nations of heroes [i.e. Africans] to the refuse of the jails of Europe, to wretches who possess the virtues neither of the countries which they come from, nor of those which they go to, and whose levity, brutality, and baseness, so justly expose them to the contempt of the vanquished” (Smith, 2002: 242). This moral rejection of slavery, although universal now, was part of a major shift from a general acceptance of slavery as a necessary evil of great antiquity to increasing demands for abolition. In The Wealth of Nations, Smith rejected slavery as economically inefficient and unprofitable:

“The experience of all ages and nations, I believe, demonstrates that the work done by slaves, though it appears to cost only their maintenance, is in the end, the dearest of any. A person who can acquire no property, can have no other interest but to eat as much and to labor as little as possible. Whatever work he does beyond what is sufficient to purchase his own maintenance, can be squeezed out of him by violence only, and not by any interest of his own” (Smith, 1811: 275).

This argument was extremely influential in the abolitionist movement of Great Britain (Drescher, 2002), as well as in Russia, as I argue elsewhere (SmithPeter, 2018). Adam Smith's work is not monolithic and various countries have appropriated different parts of his thinking at different times (Adam Smith across nations ... , 2000). In addition, succeeding generations rediscovered and reinterpreted Smith. Esther Kingston-Mann has argued that the early nineteenth century reception of Smith by important Russian thinkers, such as H.F. von Storch, distorted his thinking by using it as a defense of property rights and an apology for serfdom (Kingston-Mann, 1999: 62-64; see also: Drescher, 2002: 59-62). Others have argued that property rights and an acceptance of inequality were fundamental to liberalism in the West as well as in Russia (Stanziani, 2014). By the 1840s, a new generation of thinkers, influenced by both Smith and German Romanticism, began to argue that efficient and productive agriculture required free labor. German Romanticism prompted a more positive evaluation of the peasant even as German agronomy emphasized the absolute necessity of free labor.

In particular, the work of German agronomist Albrecht Daniel Thaer was a foundational influence in the Russian reception of market agriculture. The most important follower of Thaer in Russia was Mikhail Grigor'evich Pavlov, professor at Moscow University, member of the Moscow Agricultural Society (MAS), and director of its agricultural school and model farm. After study at the Voronezh seminary, Pavlov went to Moscow University, where he graduated from the mathematical and medical departments in 1815. After completing his doctorate in 1818 in medicine at Moscow, he was sent abroad to study natural sciences and agronomy and worked directly with Thaer. Upon his return in 1820, Pavlov was made a professor of physics, mineralogy and agriculture at Moscow University (Trusova, Bliumfel'd / Трусова, Блюмфельд, 1959: 289-290). Pavlov was the first Russian follower of Friederich Schelling, a German idealist philosopher who attempted to understand nature as an organic whole. Pavlov also acted as a mentor to younger thinkers such as A.I. Herzen, N.V. Stankevich and V.F. Odoevskii among others.

As a follower of Schelling's Naturphilosophie, Pavlov argued that all of nature was one harmonious whole “containing within it the creativity, movement, and struggle of opposites” (Walicki, 1979: 76). Nature, rather than a reflection of some idea, was real in and of itself, and was the possessor of an inner spirit present throughout its many forms. This emphasis on the whole influenced Pavlov's analysis of agricultural systems, which he felt should be a harmonious interplay of humanity and nature. In a popular public lecture series published in 1821, Pavlov compared three different agricultural systems and argued that the crop rotation system was best (Trusova, Bliumfel'd / Трусова, Блюмфельд, 1959: 291-292). In his position as head of the MAS's agricultural school and model farm, he influenced several generations of students and others.

Another follower of Thaer was S.A. Maslov, who became secretary of the MAS in 1820. His translation of Thaer's Foundations of Rational Agriculture was published by the MAS in 1830, and became the handbook of enterprising landlords (Kozlov / Козлов, 1996: 235). As A.V. Chaianov notes, the publishing history of this book shows “what reverence Moscow agronomists showed towards Thaer's work,” for the original translation, done by V.A. Levshin, was rejected by the MAS as “incorrectly translating the best of Thaer's works and giving Russian landlords a false idea of the very science [of agriculture]” (Chaianov / Чаянов, 1920: 28; hereinafter the translation from Russian is mine. -- S. S.-P.). The publisher then destroyed the first two volumes of the Levshin edition already in print and began to publish Maslov's translation, which ran to five volumes.

The MAS was an important center for abolitionist thought. Chaianov called it “a citadel of progressive Russian agronomists” (Nokhrina / Нохрина, 1995: 22). In 1820, a group of nobles, including several members of the MAS, asked Alexander I for permission to establish a society dedicated to the goal of giving complete freedom to the peasants. The two main initiators of the society -- Count M.S. Vorontsov and Prince A.S. Menshikov -- were later members of the MAS (Maslov / Маслов, 1850: 264, 272). (Vorontsov was an honorary member; Menshikov was a regular member.) The signers included V.N. Karazin, a founding member of the MAS. The project soon unraveled due to the hostility of high-placed courtiers and to the behavior of Karazin himself, who hinted in memos to Alexander I of a strange mentality like that obtaining in France before the revolution. Karazin suggested that the government establish a society under the control of Minister of Internal Affairs Kochubei to direct the improvement of peasant life and undertake “an imperceptible surveillance over all other -- so called free, open, and secret -- societies” (Semevskii / Семевский, 1888: 457). The reference was to the Free Economic Society. For his pains, Karazin was thrown into prison, while the other signers were not punished.

While walking in Tsarskoe Selo, Alexander I told historian N.M. Karamzin that “you had said that the idea of freeing the peasants had no response or sympathy in Russia, but I just received a request contrary to your opinion signed by many famous people, including your relative [the poet] Prince Viazemskii” (ibid: 456). Karamzin pressured Viazemskii to withdraw his name, a scenario reproduced with several other signers whose families pressured them to retract their names.

This episode suggests that there was a serious interest in freeing the serfs; however, it ran afoul of powerful interests, giving an indication of the difficulty of dealing with the subject. It should be noted that Alexander I was not unalterably opposed to the project; when first approached, he was pleased and saw no problem with it. Only after he encountered heavy opposition from highly placed nobles did he cool toward it.

However, it would be incorrect to argue that the majority of MAS members were confirmed believers in free labor. In fact, many of them argued for technical changes such as switching from obrok (quitrent) to barshchina (labor services) in order to make the maximum profit on their estates. This attitude was particularly evident in the generation of the founders, many of whose travels to Europe during or after the Napoleonic Wars had made them aware of the possibilities of market agriculture, but not of the need to treat peasants as human beings. A particularly good example of a pro-serfdom attitude can be found in Nikolai Nikolaevich Murav'ev, a founding member of the MAS. In response to Thaer's Smithian defense of free labor, Murav'ev wrote that “the work of hired people in Russia will be the most unfounded and destructive undertaking... in Russia there is no other means of conducting field work aside from settled peasants” (Murav'ev ... / Муравьев... , 1897: 192-193). Murav'ev's attitude is of special interest because he belonged to the often pro-serfdom founding generation of the MAS, yet his sons and many of the students from the quartermaster's school he directed became Decembrists.

The younger generation was on the whole more open to questions of improving the peasants' life. By the 1840s, the suceeding generation, raised on Romanticism, began to have a more positive view of the peasant. The younger generation firmly believed that the peasant would still require the assistance of the landlord in improving agriculture even after the former was free. Thus, the rise of free labor ideas was partly an expression of generational conflict, which led to stormy debates within the MAS and its provincial branches during the 1850s.

Before the creation of the Moscow Agricultural Society, some of its members had attempted to create a similar group. In 1803, D.M. Poltoratskii and other large landowners tried to establish a Society for Agricultural and Mechanical Arts, but failed to attract enough members from the nobility and it closed in 1805. In 1811, V.N. Karazin founded the Filotechnical Society in Kharkhov, also called the Scientific Agricultural Society for the Improvement of South Russian Agriculture (Sreznevskii / Срезневский, 1897: 495). In 1818, Free Economic Society member Baron Rozen argued that economic voluntary associations should be founded in every province (Kozlov / Козлов, 1996: 232). The head of the Free Economic Society N.S. Mordvinov made a similar proposal on the need for provincial (and even district) societies in 1836 (Arkhiv grafov Mordvinovykh / Архив графов Мордвиновых, 1903: 576). In 1818, the founding members of the MAS elected the society's first council. The founding of the MAS was part of the larger societal response to the Napoleonic Wars and the sense of Russian patriotism that followed. The official historian of the MAS, Stepan Maslov, described the founders of the society as a “high circle of enlightened Russian nobles who had sacrificed much for the fatherland” (Maslov / Маслов, 1850: 3).

The origin of the MAS lay in discussions in 1818 at the homes of Prince S.I. Gagarin and Prince D.V. Golitsyn, “amid the ruins of a reviving Moscow” where several patriotic nobles asked “how to improve our agriculture; how to add to it the mental forces of knowledge and science; how to disseminate a belief in their usefulness and necessity from the heart of Russia to the furthest limits of the largest government in the world?” (ibid: 2). This belief in science was in line with the larger redefinition of agriculture as a complex activity that required scientific grounding. This can also be seen in the opening announcement of the MAS agricultural school, published in 1822: “The goal of the agricultural school is that agriculture be taught as a science and that the peasants and house serfs studying in it will be prepared to become thinking agriculturalists (mysliashchimi khlebopashtsami)” (Trusova, Bliumfel'd / Трусова, Блюмфельд, 1959: 307).

Overall, the first generation felt that science would solve Russia's agricultural problems without the need for major social change. They believed that with increased information, solutions would be obvious to and implemented by all. The MAS systematically reached out to provincial landlords in the hope of increasing the society's knowledge of local conditions. This was part of an already established tradition in Russia of sending questionnaires to various parts of the empire, which had been used by the Academy of Sciences as early as the 1750s. In the case of the MAS, the society conferred ex officio membership on all general governors and provincial marshals of the nobility in the hopes of receiving descriptions of the agriculture in various provinces.

The members of the MAS tended to be large landowners. One count of the 770 members that joined between 1818 and 1860 found that 621 of them had more than 100 souls, which was considered the minimum needed to allow a fully Westernized existence, while 211 owned more than 500 souls, putting them among the wealthiest nobles (Kozlov / Козлов, 2002: 403). The first president of the MAS, D.V. Golitsyn, was a major landowner and the governor-general of Moscow. In a letter to Golitsyn, the Kaluga marshal of the nobility and senator, Prince

N.G. Viazemskii, wrote that the nobility had the unique ability and thus the duty to spread rational agriculture. “In the composition of our government,” Viazemskii wrote, “landlord-nobles are the main comrades-in-arms in the improvement of agriculture. This enlightened estate is more able than others to do any new and useful undertaking... By means of landowners, we may with time... act for the improvement of agriculture even among simple peasants in all regions of Russia” (Kozlov / Козлов, 2002: 345).

This sense of exclusivity and duty echoes Marc Raeff's work on the eighteenth century nobility, in which a segment began to transfer their service from the state to society, partly under the influence of Freemasonry (Raeff, 1966). However, the members of the MAS were not forerunners of the intelligentsia but rather of a group of public-minded nobles who wanted to serve both state and society. This was expressed by founding member D.M. Poltoratskii. Poltoratskii, who had studied in Germany, and, after state service, purchased an estate in Kaluga Province, where he was one of the first to use crop rotation, fodder grass cultivation, and improved tools. He established an agricultural school for his peasants and invited his neighbors to send their peasants there (Blum, 1961: 410). In 1818, he spoke at the first meeting of the society, stating “This newly-formed society is composed of authentic lovers of agriculture for the improvement of different branches of agriculture; this society will become like many others, already established in various countries of Europe and America, if it does not differ from them in its basic qualities; namely, a strongly foreordained striving toward one goal. With all its power it will work for the common good, not allowing in itself the slightest sign of ambition or desire to satisfy self-love. This noble exploit will inevitably bring the government the most beneficial results, for all rewards of work are for the common weal" (Maslov / Маслов, 1850: 9). This sense of striving toward constant improvement is visible in an 1821 article on the history of the MAS written by MAS director and president of the Moscow Society of Investigators of Nature, J.G. Fischer von Waldheim, who wrote that “Clearly, nature ceaselessly beautifies itself and becomes better. Happy are those that are able to improve themselves along with her!” (Kozlov / Козлов, 2002: 345).

Alexander I soon approved the statute founding the Moscow Agricultural Society (Gorbunov / Горбунов, 1871: 4). The MAS had four divisions: theoretical, practical, mechanical, and pedagogical. Sixty-five professors from Moscow and other universities were members of the first, theoretical, division. They translated foreign works and produced their own original work for publication in the MAS's journals. The second division -- the practical -- consisted of rationalizing landlords with practical experience and some owners of large factories. Engineers and mechanics made up the third division, which propagandized the spread of mechanization in agriculture. Finally, the teachers at the MAS's Agricultural School and members of its model farm were part of the pedagogical division (Kozlov / Козлов, 1996: 233-234).

The society focused on the creation of its own journal and the establishment of a model farm. The MAS was able to build upon several decades of agricultural periodicals, from the Trudy of the Free Economic Society established in 1765 to A.T. Bolotov's The Rural Resident, published 1778-1779, and his Economic Magazine, published as a supplement to N.I. Novikov's Moscow News between 1780 and 1789 (Nokhrina / Нохрина, 1988: 169). Bolotov was one of the founding members of the MAS. These journals published a mix of practical and theoretical material and provided a forum for enterprising landlords. Edited by secretary Maslov, the MAS's Agricultural Journal was published between 1821 and 1840 under that name. The journal's sections consisted of original articles on agriculture, experiments and observations, translations of foreign works, and correspondence. Much of the original work called for the introduction of crop rotation into Russia; indeed, the first volume had an article on the success of a four-field system with fodder grass and potatoes.

Many of the articles emphasized the status of agriculture as a science; in particular, several travel accounts described the state of scientific agriculture abroad, including Thaer's work in Germany (Maslov / Маслов, 1850: 31-32). The section on experiments often carried works on improved agricultural tools, including mechanized threshers and plows (ibid: 33). Finally, the publication of correspondence did the most to create an empire-wide public of enterprising landlords. By writing to provincial marshals of the nobility, the society identified potential members throughout Russia, who sent in descriptions of the agriculture of their regions (ibid). This activity was crucial for the later formation of provincial societies, as landlords could identify like-minded nobles throughout a large region rather than being limited to personal contacts. The journal agitated for the introduction of market agriculture, dealing extensively with the introduction of sugar beets and merino sheep, two of the most profitable cash crops. This is visible in the publication of the Notes of the Sugar Beet Committee, published as a supplement between 1834 and 1840, and the Journal of Sheep Breeders (1833-- 1840) (Tikhonov / Тихонов, 1961: 96; Nokhrina / Нохрина, 1988: 170).

There was a debate between the founder members of the MAS about the correct methods of teaching agriculture. A group of practical landlords, headed by Poltoratskii, argued for teaching by doing. In contrast, more theoretically oriented members emphasized the importance of science and theory and the need to master such disciplines as chemistry and biology. At one of the MAS's first meetings in 1818, Poltoratskii called for the creation of a model farm where “peasants will study the practical side of agriculture. The simple people are not convinced by any instructions aside from the very work itself. Reproducing knowledge of agriculture leads to many systems [of cultivation]; these will only confuse them, and the land will be cultivated in the same ignorant manner as before” (Maslov / Маслов, 1850: 9-10). For Poltoratskii, who had created an agricultural school for his own peasants, the aim was not to create an educated peasant class with knowledge equivalent to their masters, but rather to inculcate certain useful skills among the peasantry. Academic presentation of various agricultural systems -- such as the three-field, four-field, or other forms of crop rotation -- would provide more information than peasants could use, according to Poltoratskii.

N.N. Murav'ev, director of the Quartermasters' School, took an opposing view. “The English, and all European peoples except for Russia, have realized that the application of natural science and chemistry to agriculture is necessary for its development.” Murav'ev went on to argue that the society needed to “found a school, which would prepare people able to work as clerks in the villages with sufficient knowledge to direct the introduction of those discoveries in agriculture that the society will make” (Maslov / Маслов, 1850: 11).

Partly the disagreement stemmed from varying views of the role of the landlord. Poltoratskii emphasized the residential nature of the landlord and thus the need for peasants to listen and apply what their landlord told them to do. In contrast, Murav'ev focused on the needs of non-residential landlords. “The nobles- landlords are in service,” he wrote, “and their estates are run by illiterate bailiffs and elders whose knowledge of agriculture is no higher than the peasants” (ibid). New stewards and clerks on estates with non-residential nobles would have to be capable of taking initiative and responding to problems as they arose.

A compromise was reached in which the society created both a model farm and an agricultural school. The society's experience with the model farm shows the problems of introducing rational agriculture into Russia. For the model farm, the society rented 240 desiatines of land in a swampy area near Moscow. The plan was to show that with rational agriculture, even marginal land could become profitable (Trusova, Bliumfel'd / Трусова, Блюмфельд, 1959: 311). However, the farm soon became a major financial drain on the society. Between 1822 and 1825, the society spent 86,496 rubles on the farm; at the same time, only 36 desiatines of land were actually arable and so the possibility for profitable agriculture was quite limited (ibid: 318; Maslov / Маслов, 1850: 66). During these years, the farm was run by the Englishman Alexander Rodger. Hoping to improve the farm and limit their losses, in 1825 the society turned the management of the farm over to M.G. Pavlov, who was to organize the farm mainly as he saw fit and would receive any income produced by the farm. The society earmarked a total of 20,000 rubles over five years to help Pavlov with the farm. Hired labor and serfs sent by landlords to learn new methods provided the labor.

Even with Pavlov's direction, the farm did not become profitable. In his report on the farm covering the years from 1829 to 1831, Pavlov stated that the price of grain was too low and the cost of labor too high to bring any profit. Pavlov was able to quadruple the amount of hay gathered from the wet meadows, and yet when the meadows were used for grazing, the livestock packed down the clay soil, decreasing the fertility of the fields. In general, Pavlov concluded, raising livestock and growing vegetables were more profitable than grain for Moscow landlords, but in the poor soil conditions of the farm, nothing was very profitable (Trusova, Bliumfel'd / Трусова, Блюмфельд, 1959: 321).

Making a virtue of a necessity, Pavlov emphasized the scientific importance of the farm rather than its money making potential. One of the important functions of the farm was to test new machines and tools. Beginning in 1825, it hosted annual public competitions between new types of plows, threshers, and other sorts of agricultural implements. Inventors sent in their products from various parts of the empire, and the results were published in the newspapers (ibid: 316).

While the farm taught practical skills, the agricultural school provided a high quality general education. While there had been several short-lived agricultural schools in Russia before, the MAS Agricultural School was the first long-lived institution of its kind. By 1861, nearly 700 students had graduated from the school (Kozlov / Козлов, 1996: 235). At its opening on August 15, 1822, the school stated its goal as “preparing peasant and house serfs to become thinking farmers” (Trusova, Bliumfel'd / Трусова, Блюмфельд, 1959: 307). This potentially subversive plan was backed up by a challenging five-year scientific curriculum. All students were already literate when they began the program. There was a remedial school for those who were not. The first year covered grammar, mathematics, and drawing; the second, religion, accounting, geography, statistics, and geometry. The third year deal with mechanics, architecture, and drafting, the fourth with chemistry, botany, and technology, while the fifth and final year provided a capstone course on scientific agriculture and large animal medicine (ibid: 307; Maslov / Маслов, 1850, 2nd collation: 39). Fifteen of the first students came from the Moscow Foundling Home and various military establishments while 32 other students were seignorial serfs. Annual tuition cost 400 rubles, a substantial sum in those days (Trusova, Bliumfel'd / Трусова, Блюмфельд, 1959: 308; Maslov / Маслов, 1850, 2nd collation: 40). Not surprisingly, most of the serfs were sent by wealthy nobles, many of whom were MAS members. From 1824, the school began to have public examinations; in 1826, the public was allowed to ask any questions they wished to the students being examined. According to school records, the results were met with “general approbation” (Trusova, Bliumfel'd / Трусова, Блюмфельд, 1959: 309). The first class graduated in 1827. As is known in the case of serf artists, actors, and so on, education could serve to make a serf all too aware of his low social status. Highly educated serf stewards found it difficult to marry uneducated serf women and also could be drawn into conflict with their masters.

In 1833, Pavlov proposed new rules for the school that decisively shifted the focus from a university level education to vocational training. In place of the five- year course, he introduced two courses, each two years long. The first course, which covered grammar, geography, drafting, surveying, and accounting, among others, was designed to produce clerks at the end of two years. Of every ten students, only one would go on to the next course, which covered more advanced surveying and drafting, along with chemistry, physics, mechanics, the Russian language and writing. Graduates of the second course were to be surveyors, rural architects, and stewards (Maslov / Маслов, 1850, 2nd collation: 62-63). Both courses included religion and singing, in comparison to only one year of teaching religion before. Before 1833, students in the first three years were not allowed to work at the experimental farm, as Pavlov believed that theory should provide a foundation and change old habits. Only students from the last two years were to work at the farm in the summer. In contrast, the new, more vocationally oriented, plan, emphasized that all students would work on the farm. Finally, the school was made more responsive to the landlords who were sending their serfs. The earlier rules had forbidden the landlords from removing the students until the five-year term was up. In addition, they had to continue to pay tuition. The new rules permitted the landlords to remove the students when they wished (ibid: 60-65).

At first, the society believed that the school could be self-supporting from tuition. Over time, it became increasingly clear that this was unrealistic. By 1831, the costs of the school and farm were swallowing up most of the MAS's money from dues and the government. In that year, every member was asked to pay a onetime sum of 150 rubles, and honorary members were to pay 200 rubles (ibid: 59). This did not solve the money problems. In 1835, MAS President Golitsyn asked Kankrin if the government would subsidize the school and make its teachers, along with the MAS secretary, head clerk and assistant clerks into civil servants with pensions (ibid: 65-68).

In 1832, the Ministry of Finances and Nicholas I approved the statute for a new branch of the MAS, the Main Society for the Dissemination of Improved Sheep Breeding with its Provincial Branches, commonly called the Society for Sheep Breeding. Minister of Finances Kankrin expressed pleasure with the goal of spreading better breeds, as, he wrote, it was “very necessary for our emerging factories” (ibid: 84). The society particularly focused on merino sheep, which provided thin, fine yet warm wool. It was affiliated with the MAS and yet had its own statute. The society had a wide target audience. According to the statute, the members of the society would be nobles who raised sheep, famous woolen factory owners, and wholesale wool traders. The last two were unusual, since the MAS mainly consisted of nobles. The statute went on to say that stewards dealing with sheep, directors of woolen factories, and wool salesmen could join if they could be elected by a majority of members. This policy applied to all potential members, save those who were already members of the MAS. The Society for Sheep Breeding's secretary, treasurer, and director were to be elected from the society's members.

The Society for Sheep Breeding followed the MAS's one man, one vote policy in which majority ruled and the president's vote could be cast as a tiebreaker but otherwise would not have any extra weight (ibid: 86-91). Minister Kankrin rejected MAS President Golitsyn's proposal to have the director and secretary of the sheep society be civil servants, for, he said, “they will be elected from among the members of the society, that is, from all estates without exception” (ibid: 84). In other words, the government was unwilling to subsidize the Sheep Society's unusually inclusive policy. Kankrin stated that the posts under discussion could be paid from the annual grant of 10,000 rubles Nicholas I had assigned to the Sheep Society.

The Society for Sheep Breeding also introduced the rules for the formation of provincial agricultural societies. The provincial agricultural societies did not have to deal only with agriculture, but rather they were to deal with “various useful subjects having to do with agriculture and production (fabrika) in general” (ibid: 99). The use of the word fabrika, which was also the word for factory, suggests that both agricultural processing and industrial production fell under the society's potential jurisdiction. The Southern Russian Agricultural Society was already established, but other provincial societies were created under these rules.

In addition to the Moscow Society, other major agricultural societies were long lasting and important fixtures in Russia. In 1857, the MAS had more active members than the Free Economic Society (432 versus 430), even though it spent 18,733 rubles versus the Free Economic Society's 47,991 rubles. The Southern Russian Agricultural Society, was the most active and well known of the provincial agricultural societies, with 144 active members, 56 corresponding members and 38 honorary ones. Other important societies included the Kazan Economic Society (established in 1839, with 73 active members and 132 members total), the Iaroslavl' Agricultural Society (est. 1842, 81 members total), Lebedian' Agricultural Society (est. 1847, 121 members), the Agricultural Society of Southwest Russia in Penza (est. 1848, 127 members), the Kaluga Agricultural Society (est. 1849, 124 members), the Iur'ev Agricultural Society (est. 1854, 155 members) and the Caucasus Agricultural Society (est. 1850, 158 members) (Platonov / Платонов, 1838: 40-41, 54; Struve / Струве, 1913: 71; Tikhonov / Тихонов, 1961: 94). Many of the societies had publishing programs; the Southern Russian Agricultural Society published its journal regularly from 1830 to 1917, with the last volume coming out in 1922 (ibid: 99-105; Smith-Peter, 2018: 152-153).

These officially recognized agricultural societies formed only a small part of the more widespread unofficial voluntary associations found in the provinces during the 1840s and 1850s. While 29 agricultural societies were officially founded between the creation of the Moscow Agricultural Society and 1861 (Blum, 1961: 405), a mailing list for the Kazan Economic Society, begun in 1840 and added onto through the 1850s, gives the most complete known picture of such associations at this time. Not all societies went through the process to become officially recognized and this list includes more informal associations. These included the Tver' Society for Agricultural Industry (Tverskoe obshchestvo sel 'skoi promyshlen- nosti), as well as the Tver' provincial land office (zemskaia uprava), one of only two land offices on the list (National Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan / Natsional'nyi arkhiv Respubliki Tatarstan (NA RT), f. 422, op. 1, d. 7, l. 2). The other was the Viatka land office. The list given here identifies the province in which the towns are now, rather than where they were then. Other agricultural societies (Obshchestvo sel'skogo khoziaistva or sel'skokhoziaistvennoe obshchestvo) listed were those of: Riazan', Smolensk, Poltava, Simbirsk, Pskov, Kiev, Saratov, Riga, Minsk, Kobeliaki (Poltava province), Mogilev, Kharkov, Borovichi (Novgorod province), Kineshma (Kostroma province), Shchigri (Kursk province), Lukoianov (Nizhnii Novgorod province), Taganrog (Ekaterinoslav province), Mtsensk (Orel province), and Kashira (Tula province) (NA RT, f. 422, op. 1, d. 7, l. 1-3ob.) The societies are given in the order found in the document, which to some degree likely reflects their date of founding, as the Kazan society added on more societies over time until the mid-1850s, when the list was no longer updated. Divisions of the Moscow Agricultural Society were found in Kursk, Krasnoiarsk, and Tomsk. Societies of landlords (Sobranie or Obshchestvo sel'skikh khoziaev) were located in St. Petersburg, Luga (St. Petersburg province), Vitebsk, Tula, Borisoglebsk (Tambov province), Zmiev (Kharkov province), Lokhvitsa and Romny (both Poltava province). Other societies found on the list, in addition to well- known ones in the capitals and a few government organs such as provincial statistical committees, included the Kuban Economic Society (in Ekaterinodar), the Vasil'sursk Society of Agriculture and Agricultural Industry (at a farm near the selo of Bykovka in Nizhnii Novgorod province), the Perm' Economic Society, and the Astrakhan Gardening Society (NA RT, f. 422, op. 1, d. 7, l. 1-3ob.) As is evident, these voluntary associations were widespread in the provinces and deserve to be better studied.

The new rules governing the creation of agricultural societies were strikingly liberal, allowing any group of five or more people willing to create such a society the right to write a statement to that effect and send it to the Society for Sheep Breeding and to the governor. If the governor found no reason to prevent the formation of the society, he would give his permission to open one (Maslov / Маслов, 1850: 98). This was unusually decentralized, since typically societies had to be approved all the way up to Nicholas I. In addition, the statute said that “Governors and marshals of the nobility are to be members of the society; however, they are not to give orders as the Director of the society” (ibid). This is quite significant because most quasi-public associations, such as the Prison Aid Society, had the governor appointed as the head (Gernet / Гернет, 1960: 139-145).

The provincial societies were given substantial autonomy within the MAS. “The Main Society will not enter into the internal organization or the creation of provincial societies except in an advisory manner,” the statute laid out (Maslov / Маслов, 1850: 99). In addition, once the governor and the Main Society approved the society, the provincial society could establish “detailed rules of the internal composition of their activities and their correspondence.” After a majority of members approved the rules in an election, the rules would be “accepted as a permanent guide” (ibid: 100). Neither Kankrin nor the Committee of Ministers raised any objections to any part of the statute aside from the potential election of non-nobles.