Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [97]
Unleached soils occur where evaporation is good. The rich salts remain in the soil, which is usually neutral to alkaline. Here, agriculture is good. The richest of all the unleached soils is the deep black earth, the chernozem, of the south.
Between these two soil types, however, lies a third – a sort of compromise. This is the grey earth – technically a leached podzol-which is moderately good for agriculture.
Roughly speaking, the good black soil lies in the south, on the steppe; the grey in the centre of Russia, in the lands from Kiev up to the River Oka. But in the great loop of the Russian R, and thence northwards until one reaches the peaty, waterlogged soil of the tundra, the ground is poor podzol, and yields upon it are low. This soil, together with the cold weather, is the reason why the agriculture of northern Russia is very poor.
And upon this earth, one did not need the heavy iron ploughs that had already been used for centuries in the thick, rich black earth in the south. The peasants in the north used the soka – a light, wooden plough with a modest steel tip that only scratched the surface of the thin, infertile land.
It was this feeble little plough, and this half-barren soil, that had disgusted Yanka’s father. But even more to be despised was the method the peasants were using to organize their holdings.
For instead of having two, or sometimes three, big fields upon which crops would be rotated, the villagers were using the ancient slash-and-burn technique: cutting down a piece of woodland, burning the debris, and then working the resulting carbonized field for a few years before moving on to another and leaving their last to become wilderness again. It was a form of ancient subsistence agriculture.
‘Pagans,’ her father repeated in disgust. But there was little, as a single newcomer, that he could do about it.
And it was this primitive aspect of the place that confirmed Yanka’s opinion of the villagers, and her lack of interest in them.
The steward, servant of the boyar, was technically a slave. The Viatichi families, besides being uncouth, were the poorest kind of peasants – sharecroppers – who instead of a fixed rent paid the boyar a third of their crop. The Mordvinians were hired labourers, who worked a part of the estate some way from the village which the boyar had decided to retain in his own hands; and the other Slav families from the south had already adopted the primitive ways of the north-east, it seemed to her, and were contentedly using the slash-and-burn techniques on their modest holdings.
There were, as it happened, no unmarried young men amongst these Slavs in any case. The nearest to her in age was an eleven-year-old boy. As for the three Mordvinian and two Viatichi youths, although they all seemed kindly, she did not care for them.
This place is primitive, she decided. Whoever I find to marry, he certainly won’t come from here.
It was three days later that her father had made a discovery that infuriated him even more.
‘There is good land here after all,’ he told her in frustration that evening. ‘Yes: chernozem. But they won’t let me work it.’
‘Where?’
‘Over towards the village they call Dirty Place. Can you believe it? I went over there today with those damned Mordvinians.’
For nature – the retreating glaciers from the last ice age, to be exact – had here and there deposited in the region of the sandy podzols, small stretches of good grey soil. There was a large area of this so-called chernozem above Vladimir, stretching towards Suzdal. And another, much smaller deposit had been made near Russka.
‘The boyar’s keeping back that land. He’s leaving us only the poor soil.’
As it happened, this stretch of chernozem was divided into three parts. One part, somewhat to the north, was a private estate that belonged to the Grand Duke himself. The village there had been destroyed by a plague some years ago, but in time, no doubt, the Grand Duke would use it again. The part to the east was Black Land – nominally the Prince of Murom’s – but