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C O N T E N T S . The present investigation aims to throw light on the main features of farm-management in the Central Black-earth Region. The agriculture of the Central Black-earth Region was particularly backward even in the pre-war time. Precisely here the farmers were clinging most conservatively to the old three-field method of cereal crops, which is far from being sufficiently intensive and productive to sustairi the agricutural population, whose density was in such a great disproportion to its level of agricultural efficiency, that this region became the focal point of agrarian over­ population. Therefore the study of agricultural forms of this Region, besides its theoretical importance, is also of considerable practical value, because it ^ c a n provide a base for stale policies and measures of cooperative and agricultural aid, which are to be the foundation stones of agricultural progress in this region. The investigation was made in the summer of 1925 in the Pensa- district with the aid of special agents. Upon the territory of this district were selected 72 typical farms, equally from the black-earth and non-black- earth parts of the district. The farms were chosen from different economical groups in order to reflec t all the especial characteristics of the organization of large, medium and small farms. By means of questioning the pea.sants the selected farms were described in detail following the uniform-programm, both from the aspect of costs and receipts as well as from the technical aspect of agricultural production. • The results thus obtained were analysed by means of the cost ac­ counting method. A bookkeeping ledger was drawn up for each of the farms, showing the profitableness of the different branches of agriculture. ■The farm is unquestionably an organic unit, in which the separate branches have no independent existance and form only parts of the whole. The farmer is interested in the general net income of his farm and not in that of its separate branches. It is true also that no accounting methods can take the place of skillful organization and actual knowledge of the farm. Notwithstanding this, a cost accounting survey of a farm enterprise, executed not in a naively-realistic way, but with due consideration of all conditionalities of calculation and all the peculiarities of the farm, шау be of great use to the farmer towards the improvement of his farm, Parti­ cularly useful can be this method to the agricultural economist studying the organization of the farms in the given district. In this case one can rely upon the observations, made on a large group of farms, converting thus the accounting analysis into accounting statistics. . In the present issue are given the ledgers of a number of examined farms, including a description of their families and property. The farms are located in different settlements; 36 of them belong to the non-blach- earth part of the district and the remaining 36 to the black-earth part. Электронная Научная СельскоХозяйственная Библиотека