Every proprietor has sixty-five hectares of land, for which he pays an annual quit-rent to the crown of fifteen kopeks per hectare; besides which he pays four rubles a year towards defraying the general expenses of the colony, the salaries of the committee, the inspector, the schoolmasters, &c. Each village has a granary for reserve against seasons of dearth; it must always contain two tchetverts of wheat for every male head.
The cattle is all under the management of one chief herdsman, at whose call they leave their stalls in the morning, and return in the evening to the village.
Every five or six years one or more new villages are established. A newly-established family does not at once receive its sixty-five hectares of land; if the young couple do not choose to reside with their parents, they generally build themselves a little house beyond the precincts of the village. But when the young families are become so numerous that their united allotments shall form a space sufficient for the pasture of their flocks in common, and for the execution of the agricultural works enjoined by the regulations, then, and not till then, the new colonists obtain permission to establish themselves on the uncultivated lands. At present the Mennonite colony possesses nearly 30,000 hectares of land not yet brought under the plough. Thus these Germans, transplanted to the extremity of Southern Russia, have successfully realised some of the ideas of the celebrated economist, Fourrier.
It will readily be conceived that under such a system of administration, and, above all, with their simple habits, their sobriety and industry, these Mennonites must naturally have outstripped the other colonists in prosperity. Those from Swabia and Baden, though subjected to precisely the same regulations, will never attain to the same degree of wealth. They are generally fond of good cheer, and addicted to drink; but they have, perhaps, the merit of understanding life better than their Puritanical neighbours, and of making the most of the gifts Providence has bestowed on them.
The Mennonite colony possessed at the close of 1837:--
Horned cattle 7,719 Horses 6,029 Merino sheep 412,274 Fruit-trees in the gardens 316,011 Forest trees 609,096
These last have since perished for the most part. The sale of wheat in 1838, amounted to 600,000 rubles. The provisions for public instruction are highly satisfactory. The colony numbers forty schools, attended by 2390 pupils of both sexes, who are taught the German language, arithmetic, history, and geography. Russian is also taught in two of the schools.
The Mennonites, as well as the other German colonists of Southern Russia, for a long while enjoyed a very special protection on the part of the government; and both the present sovereign and his predecessor have on several occasions given them signal proofs of their favour. But unhappily their committee was suppressed eighteen months ago, and this measure will be fatal to them. They had long looked forward with alarm to a change in their affairs, and sent many deputations to St. Petersburg, to solicit a continuance of the original system: their efforts were ineffectual; the work of centralization and unity has involved them in their turn, and they are now in immediate dependence on the newly-constituted ministry of the domains of the crown. No doubt the government had a full right to act in this manner; and after having allowed the colonists to enjoy their peculiar privileges for such a long series of years, it may now, without incurring any obloquy, subject them to the ordinary system of administration prevalent in the empire. But it is not the less certain, seeing the corruption and venality of the Russian functionaries, that this change of system will lead to the ruin of the colonists, and that, notwithstanding all the efforts and the good intentions of the government, when once the Germans are put under the same management as the crown serfs, they will be unable to save their property from the rapacity of their new controlers. The colonies have been but a few months under the direction of the ministry of the domains, and already several hundred families have abandoned their dwellings and their lands, and retired to Germany. I saw a great number of them arrive in 1842, in Moldavia, where they thought to form some settlements; but they did not succeed.