ASSISTANCE TO FARMING 151
ferent provinces, while the tabulation of the data outlined was entrusted
 to the statistical organs of the zemstvo boards. The results
proved far less alarming than had been expected by the pessimists,
it being found that while the shrinkage in the cultivated area in
some localities was indeed very great, it was only about 12 per cent
on the whole.® But, even these results were considered sufficiently
serious, the more so since the causes that were responsible for the
situation continued to operate; for, after the census of 1916, there
was no respite in the mobilizations of men and the commandeering
of horses and cattle for war purposes.
Two important tasks now confronted the zemstvos: (1) to assist
the impaired economy of the peasant households, and (2) to take
general measures to meet the decline of agriculture and to check the
further shrinkage of the cultivated area.

Relief of Peasant Farmers.

Zemstvo aid to peasant households impoverished by the War was
given in the same forms in which it had been previously given to the
families of soldiers; but, as the need continued to grow, the zemstvos
 found it necessary to urge the population to take an active
part in the work of relief. “In the work of organizing relief for the
farmers,” says a report of the Moscow district zemstvo board, “it is
necessary to undertake extensive propaganda for the collaboration
of the local institutions, such as village assemblies, cooperative societies,
 relief committees, etc.”* This propaganda met with some
measure of success, and in the Moscow district, for example, assistance
 was rendered to 1,209 households in 151 rural communities.
Village assemblies gave relief to 786 households and the relief committees
 and cooperative societies assisted 423 households. A total of
15,221 rubles was spent, including 9,313 rubles from zemstvo funds
and 5,908 rubles from local funds appropriated by the village assemblies,
 coSperative societies, and relief committees, as well as from
voluntary donations.

® According to Prokopovich the cultivated area in forty-five provinces not
occupied by the enemy declined from a total of 71,765,000 deciatines in 1914
to 70,190,000 deciatines in 1915 and 64,741,000 deciatines in 1916. See S. P.
Prokopovich, Voina i Narodnoe Khosyaistvo (The War and the National
Economy), Moscow, 1918.
* Izvestia (Bulletin), Nos. 43-44, p. 184.