Main Ideas and Methods of Social Agronomy

Our agronomic experience allows us to make a list of requirements for the poster. The first and main requirement is correct content (“scientific content”), which goes without saying. However, some posters, especially for a cooperative, often make us consider this requirement. Probably everyone knows the usual type of posters that shows “the peasant economy before and after grass cultivation”, etc. As a rule, such posters present the peasant economy before the reform in gloomy colors, but after the reform in exaggerated rainbow hues. We have to question the admissibility of such a technique. Cer- teopma tainly, it correctly presents the trend of the reform, but the emphasis is exorbitantly exaggerated and often unlikely.

Does this technique follow the first requirement? We would say no, if such an exaggerated comparison has an independent meaning and prevails on the poster; we would certainly say yes, if such an exaggerated comparison has an auxiliary meaning, illustrates and visualizes the poster, and draws attention to it. Thus, the well-known cooperative poster, “Remember and Do not Forget” should be considered successful and correct, because its main idea is based on the tested statements that were just visualized by some vivid comparisons of “before and after”.

The second most important condition for the poster's success is its relevant content. It is desirable that the poster vividly and clearly presents some position or idea, which the viewer remembers at first glance. The poster should not be overloaded with content, because any overload prevents understanding and deprives perception of brightness and integrity. Posters should be looked at rather than considered. Their authors make a huge mistake when, “in the interest of completeness”, they try to press the content of several book volumes into one poster. Such overloaded posters, for example, the well-known “World of Cooperation”, look like an entertaining rebus rather than a meaningful poster. On the other hand, posters with insufficient content look empty and pale. Thus, considerable pedagogical and artistic tact are needed to find the necessary content-richness.

The third requirement applies to the illustration of the poster content, i.e., to its composition, which should not have unnecessary details. All pictures should be styled to some extent. The most important ones should be put forward and emphasized, because otherwise the peasant attention not guided by the living word can focus on minor details and miss the most important ones. I know some agronomic posters that are good examples of violations of this rule. For instance, on the poster, there is a village in a beautiful landscape, surrounded by gardens and rich in livestock and implements. Among other things, the viewer sees two piles of bags near a hut, one of which is slightly larger than the other. Beneath the picture, there is a surprising explanation in small letters explaining that it presents the impact of early plowing on yields. Certainly, this example is extreme, but we can see similar mistakes on other posters, which seems inevitable for photographs. An extremely detailed and difficult to be styled, pale, and gray photographic image is necessary for books but absolutely unacceptable for posters and should give way to the artist's colorful brush.

According to the fourth requirement, the poster as a piece of art has to follow all the rules for works of art. It should ensure the unity of artistic conception and composition, and the latter should inevitably lead the viewer to the main position presented in the poster's content. If the design demands a combination of images or inscriptions, the compositional unity can be achieved by ornaments, the example of which we see on the well-known poster, “Successes of the Peasant Economy and Cooperation”.

The fifth requirement applies to poster statements that have to be laconic, dogmatic, and with no reasoning or extensive evidence. Social agronomists should take into account the decades-long experience of commercial advertising. A laconic phrase repeated many times and accompanied by a vivid visual image affects the consciousness more strongly and deeper than a detailed and long reasoning. Statements, such as “If shells, then only those of Katyk” or many times repeated words, such as “Shustov's cognac” are a more powerful weapon of mass psychological influence than one hundred pages of thought- out logical evidence. Residents of Moscow and other big cities felt the power of the systematic propaganda by posters that were perfectly designed to promote the war loan in 1916.

However, despite the wide experience of commercial advertising, we should not identify our tasks with those of advertisers. The designer of commercial advertising aims to introduce the name of the advertised product into the consciousness and memory of the general public regardless of the means necessary to achieve this goal. He claims that his product is the best in the world and would cure all diseases; he even promises a happy married life to those who would buy a dowry from him. However, the advertiser does not claim that people believe his words; moreover, he does not need to be taken seriously. It is enough that his advertisements attract attention, because commercial advertising aims at the semi-conscious introduction of ideas into the head of the average person.

The agronomist cannot use these tricks just as he cannot use falsification and short weights. If we use exaggerations, we inevitably make them decorated like legendary, cheap, popular prints. To attract attention and enhance impression we should not emphasize the content of the poster but use auxiliary means, such as bright colors, skillful images, and so on.

Finally, to conclude our long consideration of the poster, it is necessary to mention that its content and images should be relevant for the audience and location. For instance, posters for fences on the market square should differ in design and content from posters for the cooperative board office or peasant hut walls. Posters for peasants and cooperative members should be designed differently; posters for the initial propaganda have to differ from the fancy posters statements of the Moscow Union of Consumer Societies, with which the faithful cooperator decorates his shop like the orthodox Muslim decorates the mosque with pieces of fabric with the embroidered Surahs of the Koran.

These are a few generalizations that outline the path for the further development of a poster theory. We did not consider leaflets and reference tables, because they are not directly related to the methods of presentation. Lecturers give them to listeners after the lecture for теория better memorization of the material.

The issue of keeping the content of courses in the consciousness and memory of listeners is quite new and interesting for out-of-school education. Practical methods such as testing conversations, questionnaires, distribution of notes, and popular literature have a too short history to make generalizations in this field. However, the issue is important and requires a comprehensive analysis.

To conclude our essay, let us consider the preparation of the lecturer for the oral presentation of his course. All of the above describe the preparation of materials for lectures, their arrangement and systematization, i.e., the work of the lecturer before the lecture. When the lecturer mounts the rostrum, he has to creatively transform the prepared material into the living word, which is a most subtle art. As in all other areas of spiritual creativity, it is inconceivable to make generalizations here, so we present only two general positions, probably subjective in nature. First, if the lecturer selects data and visual aids according to the theoretical structure of the future lecture, it would follow only the available material, which often makes the lecturer change his plan. Second, we would recommend that skillful speakers not prepare a text but a general plan and leave the rest to one's creativity when giving the lecture. The resulting narrative roughness would be more than covered by the freshness and brightness of direct creativity.

These are the first grains of experience in the study of presentation methods for the peasant audience.

Chapter 7. Conversations, lectures, courses, and agronomic consulting

In the previous chapter, we considered in detail the methods of oral, agronomic propaganda. The exceptional importance of this issue for every social-agronomic worker makes us also consider in detail the organizational forms of this type of agronomic activity. In the search for ways for ideas about agronomic progress to enter peasant thinking, we can identify four groups of factors that can influence the mind and will of every peasant: 1) words of the agronomist addressed to the peasant personally (all forms of oral and written influence of social agronomy on the mind, will, and imagination of the peasant); 2) words of peasant neighbors on issues of agronomic propaganda; 3) neighbors who have followed some advice of the agronomist; and 4) testing the agronomist's advice in one's own economy.

To ensure the success of agronomic propaganda, it is necessary to use all these factors and organize this propaganda in such a way that the words of the agronomist will affect as many peasants as possible and that all peasants' neighbors will talk about issues promoted by social agronomy. Also that there will be peasant pioneers who will implement the promoted actions, and that the access to seeds, fertilizers, and implement rental will be facilitated.

The forms of oral propaganda practiced by agronomists usually take into account these tasks. Agronomists try to solve them by developing specific methods for each task.

The most extensive forms of the agronomic propaganda are chance conversations at rural peasant gatherings and episodic lectures. This form of propaganda is the most widespread, affects the largest number of peasants, and, thus, should be considered a weapon of the strongest impact on the general population. However, to make conversations and lectures a mass factor, it is absolutely necessary that they involve large groups and do not consist of separate speeches in the randomly selected settlements.

We have to create a network of lecture centers so that the entire population of the region will visit them without long trips. We have to make a lecture calendar so that the days and hours of conversations are convenient for the local population. It is necessary to advertise the scheduled lectures and discussions to gather as many listeners as possible. Topics and content of lectures should be coordinated with all other social-agronomic events. Lectures on advanced agricultural machinery should be supported by the work of rental offices, exhibitions, demonstrations of machinery in operation, and agricultural warehouses. Lectures on dairy farming should be supported by the organization of tupping offices, experimental feeding, young stock exhibitions, and dairy cooperatives.

Such a series of lectures and conversations can have a significant impact on the peasant mass consciousness. However, the nature of this impact is superficial. It only prepares the ground for more intensive methods of agronomic propaganda. Moreover, lectures should be given systematically and repeatedly.

The agronomist's words first heard by the peasant audience are not perceived by its majority. Only repetitions and long discussions can ensure that the words of the agronomic propaganda will affect the peasant consciousness. One of the first Russian agronomists, M.E. Shaternikov, described the mechanism of the peasant perception as follows: “The agronomist who came to the village for the first time to promote grass sowing is usually met with distrust and shouts of misunderstanding: “We in it, in this clover, not a bite understand.” “Banns take care of the cattle, while we have nothing to eat,” etc. The agronomist should not be confused by such misunderstanding, for it is quite natural. Listeners simply do not want to think; they deny everything strange and unfamiliar. The agronomist should continue to talk, study his audience carefully, and try to find one or two attentive listeners with a spark of interest in their eyes. After the conversation, they usually come to the lecturer; if they do not, he has to find them to talk in more detail about grass cultivation to ensure their full understanding.

Having achieved this, the agronomist can leave and then return to the village in a week or two to meet a reborn audience -- one without stupid denial, still with doubts and mistrust in the use of clover, but with more specific and practical questions: “Where do we make the fourth field, where can we get seeds, etc.” Such questions mean that there had been numerous debates and disputes between believers and deniers. That the questions concern the technical basis means that the agronomist will find necessary decisive arguments and specific solutions.

This is the power of propaganda among peasants as believing masters who often become fanatics of the agronomic progress. Therefore, the primary task of social agronomy is the formation of a group of such peasants-pioneers. Social agronomy strives to solve this task by organizing short agricultural courses for the most educated peasants. These courses are such a powerful tool of agronomic work that we have to consider their various forms in detail.

Practical work determines the basic types of peasant courses. Their most elementary form is a series of lectures given by different lecturers in some place for several days. This series is intended for a general audience of “everyone interested”. Despite its wider opportunities compared to separate lectures, this series is still systematic readings rather than courses.

The distinctive features of courses are the same audience, practical lessons, and a kind of individualized teaching. Courses vary in content, duration, and composition of listeners. There are general agricultural courses as an elementary encyclopedia of agriculture and special courses on different branches of agriculture; five-day, two- week and monthly courses -- depending on the volume and detailing of the subject and content; courses for peasants in general, for bookkeepers, cooperative partnerships, people's teachers, etc. Each type of course has its peculiarities in both goals and organization, which are described in special literature.

If we want to turn listeners of the peasant courses into future pioneers of agricultural progress, we have to pay special attention to their selection. Some agronomic workers believe that the very desire to attend courses is a sufficient indicator of peasant development and culture. They use restrictions only if the number of applicants exceeds the possible number of listeners. Other agronomic workers consider this method of automatic selection too random and unable to guarantee the social effect of the course. They suggest that local agronomists choose and recruit listeners, or that local cooperatives make up the audience by sending listeners.

Pedagogy requires a homogenous audience for it is extremely difficult to have classes in which some students can barely read, but others have graduated from a four-year, specialized school. We need a preliminary testing conversation to sort listeners. We also know of attempts to prepare untrained listeners for the courses by group classes or by distributing brochures. The total number of listeners is determined by the ability to organize practical classes for each of them. The number of 30-50 listeners is optimal.

Great skill and pedagogical instinct are required to develop the course program. As a rule, general peasant courses are too multidisciplinary and overloaded with content. Pedagogically inexperienced agronomists try to press the four-year program of the Petrovsky Agricultural Academy into a one-month peasant course.

In the previous chapter, we considered in detail the reasons for not overloading the presentation with content. We will not repeat those considerations and note only that we do not deny the value of general agricultural courses but believe that special courses are preferable in terms of social profitability. In any event, multidisciplinary courses, in which sciences and lecturers change with kaleidoscopic speed before the perplexed audience, are unacceptable. Courses for the special peasant type of thinking should be practical. They combine general ideas that teach the peasant audience about logical thinking with such data and advice that every listener can use in his economy when he returns home. The presentation should be based on local data, i.e., the lecturer should use facts about the local reality in his evidence, examples, illustrations, and statements, but this technique should not be overused. Certainly, facts from abroad and about both agricultural and cooperative life make the presentation more interesting and broaden the mental horizons of the audience. Still, the programs of lecturers should be coordinated to avoid repetitions and omissions in the hope that some other lecturer will fill the gap.

Practical classes are an indispensable part of the course. However, they should not aim to teach someone to do something or develop some professional skills. Their goal is more modest -- to strengthen the perception, because the action can be perceived in two ways: by either imagining or implementing it. The latter is more vivid and, thus preferable for a specifically thinking audience.

Let us consider the organization of lecture staff. Despite the great advantages of relying on the local pedagogical staff, mainly the local agronomist as someone who knows the local conditions, a significant part of the lectures is given by outsiders, for no man is a prophet in his own land. New faces, even agronomists from the neighboring areas, give the course a touch of novelty and festivity, which greatly refreshes the impressions of the audience.

The internal organization of the course is not well developed. According to the educators, the classes should last no more than six hours and leave some time for reading tutorials, individual reflection, and conversations with other listeners. Only these conditions ensure the normal perception of the new information -- without overloading the consciousness and with remembering all the perceived. A part of the free time can be used for general cultural development -- concerts, reading books, excursions to local churches or estates, if they теория have historical or artistic value, etc. This form of recreation is often as beneficial for listeners as lectures.

The course should end with an evaluation procedure, a kind of examination. Some lecturers consider it unnecessary and even harmful, because after the exam the listener expects a certificate, a kind of diploma, and after getting it seeks a better place. Such an outflow of educated people from the peasant economy is the main scourge of the courses, primarily special and long courses that really provide some kind of professional training. Thus, the main goal of courses -- to educate pioneers about agricultural progress in the very thick of the peasant population -- is destroyed by this outflow, and social agronomy has to resist it by a very careful selection of listeners.

The most important issue is not so much testing the listeners' knowledge as consolidating it, because the content of lectures and practical classes is often learned superficially and is lost when peasants return to their everyday life. The lecturers try to prevent this by providing the graduates with lecture notes and small collections of books. However, the main form of consolidating knowledge is a constant relationship of the agronomic organization with the graduates -- lecturers' visits to their households, their involvement in cooperative work, sending agricultural journals them, etc. Only when this active connection with the local agronomic staff is provided, can the graduates play the role of the second and third factors mentioned at the beginning of this chapter.

Individual consulting is also desirable, especially when the graduates try to implement the advice of social agronomy. In general, individual consultation at the request of individual peasants is a feature of the developed stage of the agronomic work. This not when the agronomist comes to the peasant and tries to gain his confidence, but when the peasant comes to the agronomist on his own initiative. Agronomists of Belgium and some other European countries with old agronomic organizations pay particular attention to this form of work, which is usually stationary. Many come and often wait in line to get advice and instructions on specific issues of their economies. The agronomist waits for visitors in his specially designed office or on appointed days and hours in some another place, such as the premises of the local cooperative or a cafe.

Written consulting is usually more widespread. In some periods of agronomic work, the demand for consulting is so great and so valued by the population that in some western regions even private, social agronomists appear.

In addition to the already mentioned forms of oral propaganda, there are also various, local, agricultural meetings and congresses. By involving local cooperative figures and members of small, regional, agricultural societies, by asking them questions about the local, agricultural life and encouraging them to consider such issues, social agronomy creates a local, public, agricultural opinion and involves wide peasant circles in the social life. Certainly, this gives a strong impetus to local self-organized activity, and the agronomic word falls into the most fertile soil at the local, peasant, agricultural meetings, the general meetings of local cooperatives, and the economic councils of the democratic zemstvo.

These are forms of the social-agronomic work, in which the agronomic “tale” plays a leading role. In the following chapters we will consider forms of agronomic “presentation”.

Chapter 8. Agricultural exhibitions, demonstration events, model farms, and peasant excursions

The impression made by our words and thoughts depends on the psychological state of people and on the importance for them of the issue. Quite often, useful and practical advice of the agronomist pronounced unconvincingly, boringly, and in an everyday situation does not affect the peasant's thinking because he is still not used to assessing the benefits of the agronomic knowledge. Therefore, the workers of social agronomy decided to organize presentations in forms that would inevitably attract the attention of broad peasant masses, affect their imagination, and make an extremely significant impression.

One of such forms is a mobile, agricultural exhibition, which is always a significant event for the village, a kind of a holiday that attracts all the population. The active center of the mobile, agricultural exhibition is the living word supported by many visual aids. Usually, this exhibition consists of some agricultural machines promoted by social agronomy, which are shown to visitors in operation. They also include collections of fertilizers, weeds, seeds, models, and all kinds of agronomic and cooperative posters and pictures.

Because the main feature of such exhibitions is mobility, the set of its elements should be transportable and equipped with transportation means. If the exhibition moves by rail and makes stops at stations, it should have special carriages. However, usually such exhibitions move by dirt roads and transport their exhibits by ordinary cars. Practical experience has shown that such exhibitions need their own or at least permanent horses that will be used not only for transportation but also for demonstrating machinery. This is difficult to organize with horses hired by chance. We also know of attempts to make a special wagon-rostrum for the exhibition, but they were not successful.

After the material part of the exhibition has been organized and the program of lectures prepared, it is necessary to plan the route of the exhibition, provide it with premises, and advertise it widely. When planning the route, one has to take into account: 1) villages that have suitable lecture rooms and at the same time are the center of gravity for surrounding settlements and 2) duration of trips and road conditions. All other things being equal, if there is no agronom- teopma ic work in the area, the exhibition should visit those settlements in which agronomic stations will be opened. If there is some social-agronomic work in the area, the exhibition should visit those settlements that, for some reason, are poorly served by agronomists.

The population is informed about the exhibition by wall posters, leaflets given to schoolchildren for their parents, and other notification methods. In the village, the exhibition is located either on school premises or in people's houses, where it hangs posters and arranges its collections. Machines and implements are usually shown outdoors or under a canopy, if there is one. The exhibition house and all its premises are decorated with flags, flowers, and colorful fabrics, which makes the exhibition look festive and affects the imagination of visitors.

The exhibition usually spends four to five days in one village: one day to arrange the exhibits, two or three days for visitors, and one day to pack up.

Lecturers at the exhibition give two or three lectures-talks a day, and the rest of the time they spend at the exhibition by giving explanations to visitors and trying to meet people. The topics of lectures are usually very general -- “needs of agriculture”, “grass seeding”, “dairy cattle”, “machinery”, etc.

The lecturers and the agronomist -- the head of the exhibition -- are local agronomists and invited persons. In addition to the lecture staff, the practice determined that it was necessary to include the special manager of the economic section and permanent workers.

Lectures and exhibits usually make a very strong impression on the peasants. The task of the permanent agronomic organization is to ensure that this impression remains along with the social ties with the local population established by the exhibition. The exhibition tries to deepen and consolidate the knowledge provided by distributing lecture notes and popular agronomic and cooperative literature.

It is interesting to add some local exhibits to the mobile exhibition: the results of local agronomic experiments, crop samples, livestock, etc. By strengthening the local part of the exhibition, we gradually move from mobile exhibitions to small, regional, agricultural exhibitions, which add to the exhibits presented by social agronomy for pedagogical purposes. These include a series of contests of local producers presenting their livestock, crop products, fruits and vegetables, handicraft products, etc. At small, regional, agricultural exhibitions, the exhibits of social agronomy can be presented more fully and in more detail than at mobile exhibitions, because the former do not face transportation obstacles.

Besides sets of machinery, seed collections, fertilizers, and posters, and graphs explaining the results of regional experimental fields, some exhibitions demonstrate different models of fireproof roofs and even ways to harden ravines. Items exhibited at the contest have the owner's address and the explanatory notes of agronomists. The special export commission examines all exhibits and identifies the best, awards their owners with honorary diplomas, valuable gifts, and often cash. The results of this examination with explanations are announced and hung out for public display.

Competitions of bulls with their young stock and competitions of dairy cows require particularly careful organization to be successful.

Besides lectures, exhibitions should have group managers who explain the significance of exhibits to the visitors.

Small, regional exhibitions have a fourfold meaning. 1) As a part of lectures and explanations, they play the role of a huge visual aid that stimulates visitors' thinking. 2) They make the local population compare exhibits with each other and with the products of their economy; instructions of the export commission develop the population's ability to evaluate the results of farming. 3) Competitions at the exhibition lead to the economies' contests, thus, encouraging economic initiative and creativity. 4) Exhibitions allow the estimation of economic assets of the region, i.e., they are a very important educational tool of social agronomy.

The main task of small, regional exhibitions is to serve as the most convincing material proof of the advantages of new, agricultural implements over the old ones. This meaning of small, regional exhibitions is very important, although it is quite superficial and not always convincing. When the visitor sees huge pumpkins and cabbages, gorgeous bulls and calves, large and full-grain wheat, he does not know the economic conditions that made such results possible. Perhaps a bag of wheat was filled by selecting the best grain in the barn by hand, or a bull was brought from abroad, and other products cost the household a fortune.

Therefore, to increase the power of our argument and to make the advantages of improved methods of farming and cattle breeding obvious and convincing, we have to show not only the results achieved but also the process of their achievement, and not only on the experimental field but also in the peasant economy. This task can be solved by special demonstration plots on peasant fields and by demonstrations of feeding cattle in peasant stalls. Agronomists agree with some peasants on using a strip of land to demonstrate the use of chemical fertilizers, early plowing, etc. The allotted land is divided into plots with different conditions of cultivation or fertilizers. The demonstration of feeding of cattle includes selection of two animals of approximately the same weight and productivity, which are fed in different ways -- in the ordinary peasant way and according to the require - ments of rational agronomy. The results make the advantages of the improved technology obvious.

Some agronomists have tried to organize entire model economies, but they usually required large funding, which weakened their authority in the eyes of the peasants. Moreover, their small number hadless mass impact than numerous demonstration plots easily organized and scattered across the region.

The demonstration plot mainly affects the peasant on whose field it is located. When the peasant is convinced of the superiority of the improved technology, he becomes a pioneer of the agronomic progress.

Agronomists often try to make such plots experimental rather than used for demonstration, which is why a set of them is called a collective experiment. Such an experimental approach is necessary for regions with no old experimental institutions. However, the practice proved that the collective experiment on peasant fields cannot substitute for special experimental institutions; collective experiments are a good addition to the experimental field and can transfer results to the peasant economy. Therefore, the collective experiment should be conducted and studied by experimental workers rather than social agronomists in the narrow sense of the word.

Among demonstration activities, we should also mention rental points that provide peasants with trial agricultural machinery and implements for a small fee. We will consider such rental points in one of the following chapters.

These are forms of the social-agronomic demonstration that prove the advantages of new agricultural methods. These forms also include peasant excursions to experimental fields and other agronomic institutions, to the regions of rational agriculture, and even abroad. These excursions broaden the horizons of peasant thinking and strongly affect the peasant mind, feelings, and will with unforgettable experiences. Provided there is a good organization, they become the most powerful means of agronomic influence. Certainly, these excursions are very expensive, but their value for the agricultural culture of peasants more than covers their costs.

Chapter 9. The agricultural warehouse, rental points, and graincleaning stations The distribution of improved agricultural implements and machinery is one of the most important issues in the programs of social-agronomic work. Because the promotion required the provision to peasants of a reliable source of agricultural implements, social agronomy suggested the organization of the public trade of agricultural machinery and implements and to use it as an agronomic propaganda tool.

When implementing this idea, agronomists set the following four tasks for the agricultural warehouse: 1) to provide the local economy with good implements of those types and brands that are the most suitable for local, agricultural production; 2) to provide such supplies at the lowest possible prices, thus, decreasing the prices of private traders; 3) to inform the population of the new types of improved implements by supplying their economies on beneficial terms;

4) to use the warehouse and its customers as an audience for agronomic conversations and a place to meet with peasants and establish strong social ties between the agronomist with the population of the region.

Because these tasks are precisely set, comparatively simple, and ensure quick and obvious results, it is no wonder that there were zemstvo agricultural warehouses already in the 1860s. They became widespread in the early 20th century and replaced purchasing partnerships. Their decline has begun recently, when the strong and fully developed agricultural cooperation decided to supply the peasant economy with a means of production. However, such warehouses still function, and we have to consider the basic principles of warehousing, because there is a complex, organizational problem determined by the duality of its tasks. On the one hand, the agricultural warehouse is a commercial enterprise; if it does not make a profit, at least it has to pay for itself. On the other hand, the agricultural warehouse is a tool of social-agronomic work that is aimed primarily at peasant education. This duality determines internal contradictions in the selection of goods, methods for setting prices, and other economic decisions.

Let us first consider hundreds of goods sold in the warehouse -- sowing seeds, fertilizers, and agricultural implements which are the most difficult in terms of supplies. From the commercial point of view, it is necessary primarily to have implements and machinery, which are well known to the population and are in great and steady demand regardless of their agronomic estimates. From the social-agronomic point of view, it is necessary to have only those machinery and implements that are promoted by agronomists as the best for local production and those that should replace all others.

These two tasks often do not match. Peasants demand the machines they know, even if they do not meet the contemporary, technological requirements, whereas the improved plows, sorting machines, etc., do not interest customers for years and become commercially unacceptable, shop-soiled goods. As the agronomic work succeeds, this contradiction is resolved; however, we still look for some organizational compromise. For instance, quite often the task of distributing and demonstrating brand new machines is commercially separated from the warehouse and assigned to rental points that are very desirable for every agricultural warehouse.

Another acute issue in the selection of goods is the number of types and varieties sold. Social-agronomic tasks require only the sale of basic peasant implements, which makes all other goods unnecessary. However, the peasant buyer demands that he can buy everything he needs in one shop -- not only a plow, but also nails, wheel grease, files, and other small household items. Therefore, only organizational instinct and skill can help to find a necessary and sufficient compromise between trade and agronomic work.

Another difficult issue is setting prices, especially because prices in the agronomic warehouse usually determine prices on the free mar- teopmh ket. Commercial practice demands the highest charges on the costs of goods with slow, capital turnover, the smallest, shop-soiled share, and the highest demand. Social agronomy promotes the beneficial terms of purchasing new machines and implements, i.e., the goods in lowest demand and with the largest, shop-soiled share. The lack of profit and direct losses from such goods could be covered by the most popular goods, especially if the warehouse were managed culturally and pursued social-agronomic goals.

Antagonism reaches a tragic level on credit issues. The poverty of the peasantry that is accustomed to usurious, private, consumer credit requires both beneficial and long-term credit for the wide use of the promoted machinery. However, the warehouse does not have sufficient working capital to provide such credit, is unable to assess the creditworthiness of the buyer, whom the agronomist first saw, and lacks sufficient staff to collect debts from debtors scattered across tens of versts. Social agronomy made warehouses open wide and long-term credit, but warehousing was gradually undermined by huge arrears and the share of long-term loans in the working capital.

These drastic consequences of the credit trade gradually determined that credit was to be separated from trade and transferred from the warehouse to the zemstvo small-credit funds supported by credit cooperatives. In this form of crediting, the customer receives a credit order from the local cooperative or zemstvo small-credit fund proving that he got a loan for a specific purchase. The warehouse accepts this order for payment and receives money from the credit partnership or zemstvo small-credit fund, thus making a cash turnover and transferring the liquidation of credit relations to the special credit institution, which has all the means for the proper organization of crediting.

Under such organizational conditions, a very important question is who should manage the warehouse. The use of the warehouse as a tool of the social-agronomic work presupposes that it should be managed by the local agronomist. However, the warehousing development requires so much work that it cannot be managed as a side business; moreover, the best agronomists are often worthless merchants. Therefore, the warehouse should be managed by a special person familiar with trading, but the general regulations of warehousing should be set in the instructions and supervised by the agronomic board.

Some practitioners believe that in the interests of the warehouse, its manager should get both a salary and a share of turnover. In any case, the warehouse manager should not become an ordinary clerk. He must be a member of the agronomic board and is a part of the common cause as a warehousing specialist just as the grassland farmer is a meadow specialist and the zoo technician is a livestock specialist.

In other organizational aspects, the warehouse is partly similar to traditional trading companies and partly different from them. The most important issue is the method of purchasing goods. Only unions of zemstvos with warehouses, which can conduct multimillion operations, can strengthen public warehouses on the wholesale market, which is proved by the history of the Russian zemstvo purchasing partnerships uniting dozens of zemstvos.

The organization of credit for the warehouse is also very important. The better and easier the credit, the less working capital is needed.

Unlike the private merchant, the public warehouse monitors the situation with the machinery sold to the peasant economy. By checking the general situation of implements in its region, social agronomy seeks to establish strong ties with its customers -- the owners of the implements -- to study in detail their economy, the condition of the implements, and life of the machinery. The best warehouses often keep detailed customer records and sometimes conduct complex studies.

To conclude our brief description of the warehouse organization, let us consider a very pressing issue -- the very possibility of the warehouse's understanding of the population needs. One agricultural warehouse working in a uyezd town cannot create a large client base or ensure a mass impact on the peasant economy. Many practitioners insist on the development of a network of warehouse departments with a simple assortment of goods in the very thick of the peasant population. These departments can be managed by either a local zemstvo employee or a local cooperative. Certainly, the latter is preferable if the local cooperative institutions are sufficiently strong and sustainable. Cooperatives are people's organizations; their management of warehousing ensures the best understanding of the peasant needs. In general, trade functions are not a feature of the zemstvo self-government bodies, and if sometimes circumstances force our zemstvos to perform them, this should be only temporary.

With the sufficient development of the cooperative movement in the uyezd and province, when uyezd and provincial unions of rural cooperatives start broad intermediary operations, the warehousing work of the zemstvo loses its meaning and should be transferred to cooperation. However, social agronomy should make every effort to preserve its agronomic influence on the agricultural warehouse. The cooperative supply of the population with implements and other means of production should preserve its cultural meaning and should not turn into an ordinary commercial operation.

It is necessary to say a few words about the organization of rental points and grain-cleaning stations. We believe that both should be organized on the cooperative basis, but if cooperation in the area of social agronomy is not sufficient for the broad cultural work, rental points and grain-cleaning stations should be managed by the agronomic organization.

Rental points can have a double meaning: 1) they introduce new, agricultural machines to the peasant economy by providing them in теория temporary use; 2) they ensure the access of the small, peasant economy to such complex machines that can be fully used only on large fields and are not profitable for the small economy where they would stand idle for most of the season (harvesting and sorting machines, root pullers, meadow plows, etc.). Social-agronomic rental points can solve only the first task. They cannot set and solve the second task, which can only be solved by a dense network of the cooperative machine partnerships. This difference of tasks between zemstvo rental points and machine partnerships determines differences in selection of implements and machines and in systems of payment. Whereas the machine partnership prefers complex machines inaccessible to small economies, the zemstvo rental point can have all kinds of machines promoted by social agronomy and accessible to small economies.

Whereas the profitability of machine use and the break-even balance of the rental point are decisive for the machine partnership and determine a complex and flexible system of rental rates, these issues are of almost no importance for the social-agronomic rental point that focuses on the first task. Certainly, when there are insufficient agronomic funds, rental rates should cover a part of the rental point costs; however, it is equally certain that these rates should be beneficial. The only exception when social agronomy takes up the second task are grain-cleaning stations, because their goal is not the promotion of grain graders or cockle separators but the supply of economies with cleaned grain. In other words, grain-cleaning stations provide the peasant economy with a technology inaccessible to small economies. This exception is determined by the importance of good seed for social agronomy and by the comparative simplicity of the technical organization of grain cleaning.

Chapter ±0. Organizational work of the agronomist

Among the tasks of social agronomy, we mentioned not only the promotion of improved methods of farming and livestock breeding but also the change in the organizational plan of the peasant economy towards greater compliance with the current conditions of the economic life. It is necessary to focus on the latter, because this field of the social-agronomic work is full of disagreements and misinterpretations. The task of this chapter is extremely important and perhaps prevails over other tasks of social agronomy.

According to the basic law of agronomy, if the agronomist wants to increase soil fertility, he has to analyze the fertility factors and strengthen the factor that remains at a minimum level. When studying the structure and life of our peasant economy, we can see that many provinces suffer from the lack of an organizational plan of the peasant economy rather than from the lack of water, phosphorus, or nitrogen. Therefore, the first task of the social agronomist is to develop the organization of the peasant economy. However, this seems to contradict the above-mentioned position that the social agronomist as a public figure cannot and should not deal with the organization of specific economies. The Russian agronomic practice rarely succeeds in reconciling these two positions.

Sometimes when the agronomist is convinced of the necessity of organizational work, he simply and unpretentiously spends all his efforts on organizing the individual economies of Sidors Karpovs, Vasiliys Mosyagins, and two or three other agreeable peasants, thus not achieving any mass effect. In most cases, despite all his efforts, the local agronomist, who recognizes the need for organizational work but wants to stay within social work cannot find specific forms of the organizational work, which makes us carefully consider the organizational activities of social agronomy.

First, we should note that almost any major technical reform, especially the introduction of new economic methods, has organizational consequences that are sometimes quite major. The early introduction of fallow on the arable land in the south of Russia deprives peasant herds of pastures and raises an acute question of foraging, which makes us think about stable keeping or artificial pastures. The introduction of grass rotation provides the economy with a forage base that often exceeds the needs of the livestock, which determines the development of industrial cattle breeding. The use of the separator provides the economy with surplus skim milk, which gives an impetus to the fattening of pigs.

Thus, technical reforms and organizational consequences inevitably change all other aspects of the organizational plan, just like a small leakage destroys the whole dam. Therefore, a system of promoted techniques, balanced and supportive of the reform of the organizational plan, is itself an organizational activity. Social agronomy examines the economic system, develops a plan for the necessary organizational changes, describes their technical elements, and puts them into practice, which inevitably restructures the organizational plan of economies.

The organizational work consists not so much of the local activities of the local, social agronomist but rather of diagnostics and planning. A typical example is the work of Moscow agronomists promoting grass cultivation in the Moscow Province. Their study of the economic structure of the Moscow village proved an urgent need for fodder grass thus enslaving terms of meadow rent, and dairy cattle breeding as a path for progressive development. The last achievement would be impossible without fodder supplies. Therefore, after the organizational analysis and identification of the desired path for organizational reform, the local agronomic workers developed and promoted a number of technical methods for fodder grass cultivation. Twenty years of work led to the serious reorganization of the entire organizational structure of economies affected by social-agronomic propa- teopma ganda. In this case, as in many similar cases, the head of the peasant economy was a reformer and organizer of the specific economy, but social agronomy gave him only the idea of reform and helped him with the organizational work.

As all kinds of organizational reforms finally determine the transition from one combination of technical elements to another, the organizational work of social agronomy will always consist of both economic and organizational development of the promoted system of technical measures. Besides the above-mentioned assistance to the head of the peasant economy, social agronomy can help him by introducing scientific methods of accounting and calculation into his economic routine.

The knowledge of measures and weights is a powerful factor of economic life, which is, unfortunately, far from being fully used by our peasant economy. Therefore, among numerous courses and lectures for peasants, courses on organizing the economy should take the main place. With the numbers that describe the economies of the peasant listeners the lecturer can easily explain to them the most important economic calculations. What are the costs of producing a pood of oats or a bucket of milk? Is a mowing machine profitable for the economy of ten desiatinas? What is more profitable -- flax or oats? These are questions of agricultural arithmetic that can lead to the most difficult issues in organizing the peasant economy.

Due to the fundamental differences between the labor economy and the capitalist economy and to the poor development of the theory of the labor economy, contemporary economics does not provide objective methods for organizing the peasant economy. If we cannot provide the small producer with objective methods for organizing his economy, we have to give him the above-mentioned techniques of economic calculations, developed economic arithmetic, and basic economic concepts that would help him in the economic activity.