Page 596 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Chapter 11

In the middle of July the elder of the village on Levin’s
sister’s estate, about fifteen miles from Pokrovskoe, came
to Levin to report on how things were going there and on
the hay. The chief source of income on his sister’s estate
was from the riverside meadows. In former years the hay
had been bought by the peasants for twenty roubles the
three acres. When Levin took over the management of the
estate, he thought on examining the grasslands that they
were worth more, and he fixed the price at twenty-five
roubles the three acres. The peasants would not give that
price, and, as Levin suspected, kept off other purchasers.
Then Levin had driven over himself, and arranged to have
the grass cut, partly by hired labor, partly at a payment of a
certain proportion of the crop. His own peasants put every
hindrance they could in the way of this new arrangement,
but it was carried out, and the first year the meadows had
yielded a profit almost double. The previous year—which
was the third year—the peasants had maintained the same
opposition to the arrangement, and the hay had been cut
on the same system. This year the peasants were doing all
the mowing for a third of the hay crop, and the village

595 of 1759